


Behind the Veil

by heartslogos



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, POV Multiple, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 74,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3344069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I do not know when I started to take orders from the Dread Wolf. But I have few options here, and at least I know the Wolf. I do not know the shems.</p><p>-</p><p>An AU where the mark links Lavellan to the Dread Wolf, who sleeps and wanders the Fade - angered and puzzled by the theft and misuse of his own magic for reasons he cannot discern.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Breach: Part I

"Fascinating."

Color, light, magic – magic that tastes like _home_ , the trees yawning and stretching towards the sun and the brisk morning cold of the Free Marches that have become _safe, aneth era, my safe place_ , the soft feel of rabbits fur brushing against skin, the rock and tilt of the aravels – and a rush of power – painful, pretty, petty, _alive -_

Ancient.

Sit up. Look around. _Be careful_. Shems? Didn't sound right – ring of elven, ring of home, but not home. Sharper. Stronger. Stranger.

Right.

Shadow of a wolf -

_Mythal's mercy -_

Shape the words of protection – _don't let the Dread Wolf catch your scent, da'len, I am not a child Keeper I can handle myself –_ why didn't you believe?

A smile of wolf's teeth, and the shadows move and a man stands where the shadows part. Eyes watching – too many eyes watching.

He doesn't look like – what should he look like? Confused. Confusing. Why would I know? I've never imagined the wolf as a man -

Not as old or as young as I would have thought. No hair. Simple clothing. A wolf's blackened jaw. Broken.

Tall.

Cold.

_Dangerous._

Summon magic, should've listened, should've learned more about fire and ice and force, why didn't you listen -

No magic? _Why isn't it working?_ Not that bad at it -

A smile. Don't give him your back. Don't give him your back, don't look away, _never let a predator know you are afraid, da'len_.

"Enough of that." He waves a hand, and nothing happens and why is she surprised-disappointed? He tilts his head at her, and the wolf in the shadows seems to laugh at me. I curl my lip, I will not be laughed at by the betrayer, don't let him laugh at me. I will not -

"Fen'Harel."

"Yes." He says, head tilted as he walks around, towards and away, a spiral. Keep turning, Keep turning, don't lose him. He may have caught your scent, but that doesn't mean anything if you can run-dodge-avoid-defend. He has to trick you first. "But that is irrelevant for the moment. The greater curiosity here is who _you_ are, and _why_ you have come to my notice."

He frowns, brows drawing downward, then his lips curl – cruel and bitter, _condescending_ -

"It is so rare that the Dalish are worth anything of interest, after all."

I bite my cheek. He is a _god_. I am a woman. Blood and ether, flesh and mana. I'm young, not stupid, not suicidal.

"I have done nothing to draw your attention. I assure you."

"That is for me to decide, isn't it? You're standing here, after all." Fen'Harel casts a glance around. Not foolish enough to think he is not looking at me, still. Where is the magic? Where is the mana? Press out, breathe – draw and cast like a silver net, can hold it, still, just can't feel-use it properly, _why_ -

Draw the net, cast the net. Cast – check – feel -

 _Fen'Harel_.

Why does his magic feel like that – like home -

Yelp -

Glare and the wolf shivers a laugh with its many eyes and many teeth.

"Caution." He warns. "You aren't quite ready for that, just yet. I should think."

Grinding your teeth is bad for your health.

(It was so beautiful. So much of it, raw, old, warm, _hungry_ , overwhelming, a crashing wave of heat pouring and undulating, bursting-full. Why is the wolf beautiful?

The shem cities are beautiful, too. And so are their blades and their helms.)

The wolf settles and the man folds his hands behind his back. "Your name."

"Ellana. First of the Clan Lavellan." Names are easy things, you shouldn't give them out like coin, but this is a god and he is still _my_ god. He would know anyway. Names only have power if you let them.

"Ellana." He says. My name rolls in his mouth and in the air and it makes me rock onto my heels, ready to run. Don't know where. Stupid thought. You can't outrun the wolf. You have to trick him.  "I think the answer is clear, but to clarify – are you currently aware of the situation that you are in?"

Possibly bantering for my life with the Dread Wolf?

"Think back." He presses, and he does not move but the wolf-shadow-many-eyes seems to loom. "Think – what do you remember?"

I open my mouth -

Nothing spills out like a stream, pushing against my tongue and lips. Then like water, slides back down my throat and fills my chest, as if one of the younger clan members is sitting on me.

 _Nothing_.

"I was sent to the Conclave. The one between the fighting shems." Memories fly before my eyes – all meaningless. Empty words. A Conclave. In the mountains. It was cold. I can't remember -

 _I can't remember_.

Panic sets in, and it is harder to control than I would like.

The wolf almost looks sympathetic. My palms are sweaty and I look down and there is grass between my toes, but it isn't grass and there are no walls, why _is_ the shadow looming like that – _no magic_ -

"This is the Fade."

The world snaps under my words and expands and contracts – magic pushes at me and it is a hazy realm of possibilities. It all whispers against my skin, pushing against my mana, my mind. That's why I could not cast. It wasn't my poor abilities – you cannot cast spells in the Fade because the Fade is all magic and all spells at once.

"I don't recall falling asleep."

I sound dumb.

"I should think not." The wolf replies, he does not tease. "You have been through – something of an ordeal. Unfortunate, really." His eyes narrow. Blink. He's closer – startle back. "You did not fall asleep so much as you were knocked unconscious. You will wake up, of this I am certain, even if I have to force you awake myself. But the issue here is what you are not remembering. Little one, you have meddled with magics beyond your understanding and capability."

The wolf's smile turns on himself.

"Unfortunately, I do not know what has transpired for this to happen, either. You are either incredibly unfortunate or lucky. I am not quite yet sure."

He speaks in riddles and it feels like half the words are missing -

"I don't understand what you mean. What's happening?"

The wolf looks into me, and I can feel his aura surge, cresting – swallowing – _no_ , wait. Touching. Connected. Flowing?

"Your magic is bound to mine – for reasons I do not yet understand." The wolf paces, hands folded behind his back. "I have been asleep for quite some time, wandering the Fade. But I was pulled – yanked, really – to _you,_ my magic bound to yours. Or at least – a portion of it." His mouth twists down as he examines me with narrowed eyes. "You do not remember how you came to enter the Fade?"

"No."

Not crazy. Can't lie to the Dread Wolf. He'd _know_.

She's a shit liar to start with.

He hums.

"Then we shall discover what, exactly, has come to transpire when you awaken."

He raises a hand – flinch, hold strong – and dismisses her like an errant child -

Open mouth to protest, jolting awake. _Pain_.

Cold, wet-sharp air. Darkness. Pain. In my hand, my left hand, bright green – _it hurts my eyes_ -

Angry, violent, _confused_.

But it's _his_. It is his and it is _in her_. He was not lying. He is part of me but _why and how – what did I do to gain Fen'Harel's attention -_

Shems.

Heart hammering in chest as a heavy door in the darkness creak-slams open. A woman -

A shem woman, sinister gleaming metal armor with a white eye, sharp face, a slash of a mouth, scars – beautiful and terrifying.

She wants to cringe back, but she is bound – _never again, I am no slave_  – and everything hurts. Why am I hurting? _What happened_ -

Magic flares -

She sees someone, corner of the eye – twists, the wolf watches from the shadows, reveals the man.

Chains rattle, chaffe a little at her exposed wrist. I'm wearing the shem armor I stole to sneak into the conclave. I remember that  much, at least. The buckles gave me pause. Annoying as anything.

The shems sheathe their swords.

The woman walks where I cannot see her. Another one -

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead, except for you."

"This is the Conclave you speak of." The wolf says, moving in the side of her vision – a flicker. Like magic or an illusion, a trick of light. But he isn't, I can feel him, part of me.

The Keeper will have my hide.

The wolf drifts closer to her – she does not turn, the woman is no longer moving. None of them are moving -

"What is this?"

"A simple trick." Fen'Harel says, and she twists to look at him, he stands by the sharp-shem-woman. "I am – or part of me – is bound to you. You realize you cannot tell her this, correct?"

"No shem would believe me." How dumb does he think I am? I am no unmarked babe of the clan. "No Dalish would believe me either. But what am I supposed to tell her?"

"Lie." Fen'Harel says, " _Lie_. The Dalish at least teach _that_ , do they not? You must make her believe you are innocent of whatever has happened at this Conclave of theirs. You must find out what has occurred." The wolf shakes his head. "I can only know what you know – I am not here, physically."

Physically. Not here. Then _where_?

The wolf walks the earth. Truly?

"Where _are_ you?"

Time snaps into motion and I hold my tongue. Keeper always said it is best not to say anything at all if what you say could only make a situation worse.

"Lie." The wolf hisses -

I have no lies, I do not know what to say. I only know the truth.

This is not my doing. I do not know what is going on. I am just as confused as anyone else.

"Explain _this._ "

The woman's hand is strong – don't be afraid – and the mark flares. Sputters, sounds like electricity, feels bitter. The wolf growls in the shadows and the man lets out an irritated sigh.

"I – I _can't_."

I don't know. I don't know.

He would not let me even if I did – I am sure of that, at least.

You don't want to know. I do not have the answers you want. Shems never want the answers we have.

"What do you mean you _can't_."

"I don't know what that is – or – or how it got there."

The wolf whispers something that I can't understand – too fast, too many words and syllables, foreign and lost. I burn with shame and anger.

 _You are the reason we lost the language_ , she thinks, I can't understand you.

"We need her, Cassandra." The second one – the woman in mail with the soft face says, pushing the sharp edged woman back.

"Watch her." The wolf says, "Be wary and on your guard. This one is tricky."

Time continues, can't respond to him -

"I can't – all those people, _dead_?"

An entire building full of shems dead? And her the only survivor – she will die for this, they have cut the ears of off elves for less, they have burned entire clans into the ground for just existing -

But she _didn't do it_.

How?

"Do you remember what happened, how this began?" The soft woman coaxes.

"Think carefully, _da'asha._ " The wolf warns. "Choose your words well."

It's easier to think, here, compared to the Fade. Things are concrete and real -

But her memories are the Fade?

Darkness. Fear. So much fear – heart pounding in my chest, sweat, hot -

Running, bright light, a hand in the darkness -

"I remember – running. Things were chasing me. And then – a woman?"

The wolf's eyes are on her, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand. The mark that binds us warms in the palm of my hand. Like something sticky-soft-silky, blood and honey and lyrium.

"A _woman_?"

"She reached out to me. But then – "

Can't remember.

"A _woman_? Are you lying? This is – this is an _absurd_ story – no. No. You tell the truth? You are a poor liar. But this story is even poorer." Fen'Harel repeats, arms folded, hand covering his mouth as he paces. "A _woman_. Why a woman – where could you have – that does not make _sense_."

Glad to know that I am not the only one confused.

"Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift." The sharp woman says, softening as she knees in front of me, us. I curl away, and the magic in my veins hisses its disapproval. His disapproval.

His magic is wild and sharp and it is painful. It's _too much_.

I am mortal, blood and bone – this is _not my place_ -

The woman calmly removes my chains.

"What _did_ happen?"

"It's – It would be easier to show you." The woman says, hesitant as I – we – stand, my legs shake a little. Numb. Pins and needles that make walking a trial. I stumble and the wolf follows at my heels. Can no one sense him at all?

I do not want to give him my back.

I do not have a choice.

That is a common theme, I am beginning to think. Between the wolf and these shems, I am trapped. Mind and spirit.

So much for the pride of the _elvhen_.

The mark heats in my palm, and she looks at it – wonder and fear in her eyes as it casts green shadows on the stone around them. The chains clink and jangle. Heavy.

Doors open and -

 _The sky._ It's wrong. The light hits her eyes and she shields herself by curling in, it hurts me. The mark snaps in response – wakes up.

There is a hole in the sky. Green.

And something in my heart calls to it. Something in it calls to me – us, her. It _sings_.

Green leaves, velvet grass, waves of golden wheat, magic that tastes heady on the tongue and crystal water that shines like silver under every light. Canopies of branches like cathedral domes in shem buildings, and the trill of birds and the pound of hooves. It _sings so sweetly_. It calls me – us, him – _home_.

It makes her heart hurt.

I hear the wolf suck in a breath through his teeth. A hiss.

"We call it the Breach." The woman says. The wolf stands next to me, out of the corner of my eye I watch him watch the hole that sings to us. His jaw clenches and his eyes narrow. "It's a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It's not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave."

The wolf is silent -

"An explosion can do _that_?" The words slide out of my mouth as the woman turns back to me.

" _This_ one did. Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world."

The wolf raises his hand towards the Breach, and there is a split second of horror – _home_  – when the Breach responds and magic falls from the sky like a song -

The mark flares in my hand, under my skin. It screams, howls, and I feel it spread through my veins. Like fire, melting my bones and trying to curl flesh in on itself. Angry and spiteful.

I fall to my knees in the cold snow, trying to curl my hand around the magic. It feels so tangible, like I am holding fire and sunlight that writhes to escape my fingers. My blood.

The wolf stands over me, and he lowers his hand. The pain fades.

"It is mine." The wolf says, angry – "But how – _why_  – I do not understand. There is – there are too many holes in this logic."

His words are drowned out by the recoil, the shock and hiss, of the absence of pain. The woman kneels down in front of me.

"Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads. And it _is_ killing you. It may be the key to stopping this – but there isn't much time."

" _Fenedhis lasa_." The wolf snarls and my heart hammers in my chest. "She will ask you to go with her – do so. I need to see it up close. I need more information."

I do not know when I started to take orders from the Dread Wolf. But I have few options here, and at least I know the Wolf. I do not know the shems.

"I will help."

The woman looks into my eyes. She is a hard woman. But she is honorable. I can feel it on her. Her hand curls into the back of the armor I wore and helps me up.

She leads us through a human city.

"They have decided your guilt. They _need_ it." The wolf walks closer to me, and he mutters something familiar but I cannot focus. I stumble.

I cease to listen – I do not care for this Chantry, for their Andraste. Their Divine. Their God who refuses to listen, who allows and pardons their every war and murder.

My gods may have been locked away, but at least they were real.

Or at least – _one of them_ was real.

Their hate is familiar. Shems always hate us. Her ears and her face and her clothes. The way we _speak_. I am used to being blamed for things I did not do, for things my people did not do, by the shems.

Being killed by shems for breathing wrong has always been a valid way for me to die. That does not change now.

"We lash out like the sky. But we must think _beyond_ ourselves as _she_ did. Until the Breach is sealed."

The woman sounds _so hopeful_. So proud. So faithful. She is beginning to admire this woman. To respect her. This woman demands it with every breath.

She turns and draws a knife.

And then she cuts the ropes.

"There will be a trial. I can promise no more. Come, it is not far."  She says.

I want to laugh. The wolf's lips curl up in a flash of a smirk next to me.

Shem courts mean nothing to me. But she is trying to honor me in her way. I respect that. It is at least _some_ dignity to scrape out of this situation. Even if it is shem dignity.

If these shems do not kill me, the wolf will. I am marked by him – unwilling as it is to both of us – I am dead to the Dalish. To my people.

I have nothing to lose.

Hate burns the back of my throat.

We run through the snow, and magic spits out of the sky. The song is sharper, the wolf disappears.

The bridge collapses under our feet, and I curl up tight – protecting my head. The mark twinges, and there is a moment of panic when we land on the ice. Is it strong – will it hold? It must.

The woman says to stay behind her, but demons will not care to make obeying her word easy.

There is a staff – I do not need it to cast, but my ability to cast attacking spells is poor enough without one. I grab it.

And this – _this_ is familiar. Perhaps the one thing I can depend on in the entire world. It is not my staff or any of the kind of staves my clan uses or makes.

It is heavy with iron on both ends, and the wood is rough beneath the bare and magic-scarred left hand, clumsy in the human-armor covered right.

But the rhythm is familiar.

Swing the staff forward, allow the weight to carry the head. Channel mana through it – feel the physical motion of the staff push and concentrate the mana, sparking something physical, drawing material from mana. Swing forward, watch the burst of magical force bloom and push and shoot, focused on its target and only that. Twist the waist, circular motions draw and channel mana best, in the smoothest and most continual lines. Check the mana flow, make sure it runs like a silken river, a stream, delicate and free. This is the way the Dalish cast.

Flow like the wind, magic and air cannot be contained.

Swing, feel the mana course like a bubble trapped, from one end of the staff to the other. Release.

To channel lightning, strike the ground, focus on your targets. Tricky, tricky. But lightning has always favored me, and I have good eyes.

Focus on the target, strike the ground, be the channel. Become the conduit. As the staff raises, a burst of mana into the air surrounding. There is energy in all things, and it is all connected. Spark the dormant magic in the air, the atmosphere. There is even magic in the air.

Ignite it, charge it -

Bring the staff down, pulling the charge, pulling at the Fade -

Let the butt of the staff strike the earth, ground it. Focus on the enemy -

Ignite the mana in the air – create the chain -

A reaction, like a kiss, one touches off on the other. Electricity forms, charged particle to particle, an endless chain until it latches onto the target. Lighting up in a brilliant flash of pure energy, a crack of sound, a long chain of miniature explosions that culminates in a lightning strike.

The woman is a flurry of steel as she fearlessly raises her shield and sword in defense. I am not as protected as she – but I can do this much, at least.

I may know nothing and no one, but I know _this_. I know the storm.

The demons fall and she turns on me.

She tells me to put the weapon down.

"What are you _doing_?" The wolf reappears, hissing as I move to obey. "What happened to your _elvhen_  – " He spits the word, " – _pride?_ Unbent? Unbroken?"

I concede. _I_ do not have a shield to guard against her steel. And I could – in theory – still cast without the staff. I prefer not to. But I could.

The wolf lets out a frustrated snarl, disappears from sight once more.

She hesitates as I lower the weapon.

"You don't need a staff. But you _should_ have one. I cannot protect you." The woman turns away, sheathes her sword. "I should remember you came along willingly."

We continue onward through the snow. How much farther, I wonder -

"We draw close to something – " The wolf says, and I glance. He is _concerned_. His thin lips pressed together, brows drawn downward as he keeps pace with me and the shem. "These are – these are holes in the Fade. In theory my power is able to do such a thing, yes, but _I did not do this_. Who would _want_ to open the Fade? It is foolish and dangerous and – "

The sound of fighting interrupts him, and we both glance down at my palm. It does not change, but there is a sharp flickering pain that makes my fingers spasm.

"Hurry." He whispers – and is gone.

More demons – more shems. A _durgen'len_ with a crossbow. From my glimpse of him – a strange child of stone. No beard – a staple to all adult males of their kind, as I have come to understand.

"Quickly." Fen'Harel says, reappearing as I dodge behind rubble to avoid a blast of energy from a wisp. "You must get closer."

I bite back curses. There is a brilliant glowing rip in the air – green, it sings to the mark. It crackles, hungry, like lightning in my palm. But softer, somehow. Alive.

"The demons – "

"There are others fighting. To the tear." He hisses. I glance around and surely enough – yes, the woman and the child of stone have all the demons occupied. I rush forward, the wolf at my side.

I stop short, staring at it – it is – its like crystal. Gemstones, the Fade, itself, hardened and condensed in a moving, beating thing. Light trapped within. The magic sings a scream.

Fen'Harel appears next to me – closer than he ever has been so far, and I want to jump back – _too close, too close -_

He does not give me time. He raises his voice over the building sound of the singing-scream, over my panic – and he gabs my hand, forcing me to thrust my palm at the crystal-song. His touch jolts the his mark on my hand, and it screams to life.

"Quickly, before more come through."

His hand is warm and strong – is it real, I wonder, how could I feel it if he is not here? – around my wrist. I feel small, this close to him. I feel terribly small.

Fragile.

The magic pulses in my hand, too big, too much.

It screams and yawns as it reaches for its brother in the air. The crystal shatters, releasing the magic trapped within. It is – distorted.

If my magic is meant to flow like water when I cast – a ribbon and a stream – then this is a knot. A tangle. A gnarled thing that writhes in on itself.

The magic of the mark latches on, and suck it in. I can _feel it_. I can feel it pushing into me. A waterfall pushing into a cup. Squeezing in to fit.

He holds my hand, my wrist, firm. Forces me to hold.

I am too blind with magic to struggle.

She hurts, the magic hurts her, but she holds strong. He is surprised, _they_ are surprised she holds. That it works.

It disappears with a snap. A crack that leaves a vacuum, empty space of _normalcy_.

I blink the magic out of my eyes and turn to him. The world around is is still once more.

"What did you do?" I whisper, curling my hand, my arm, towards my chest. The magic churns and he pulls away. Moves away – space, get back, give me room – between us.

He looks pleased, satisfied, as his hands fall to his sides. Loose.

His body curves, sinuous as he speaks.

"I did nothing. The credit is yours. I am not here, I simply gave you a nudge in the right direction." He tilts his head – appraising me. "It would not have worked if you were not so stubborn, _da'asha_."

Little woman.

"Whatever caused this _Breach_ in the sky is also what created the mark on your hand. I theorized that the mark would be able to close the rifts that opened in the Breach's wake. And it seems that I was correct."

I look at the crackling scar on my palm. His – our – magic crackles, spilling from it. Like a pot boiling over, violent and eager to scald.

"It is the same magic."

"It is _my_ magic." He clarifies, "But it is not the same. It is being used in different ways. Channeled for different purposes. What those purposes _are_ I do not yet know." He glances at the sky. "And _who_ has managed to do this with my power, I cannot say."

I have half a mind to ask if it was him. If this is a trick, a ploy -

But Fen'Harel is proud above all things. This I am certain of.

He knows as much as I do as to _how_ and _why_ this happened. To him, to us.

It wounds his pride that his own magic is stolen from him from right under his nose. I almost smirk. The Dread Wolf has caught the scent of something.

I am starting to think that perhaps it is not me. I am just a – bystander in all of this. Unlucky enough to be the random vessel for his unknowing vengeance. Prodding him into even realizing he has been wronged.

Fen'Harel would not admit to being stolen from so freely. Nor would he admit to such confusion.

For now he tells the truth. For now, I can trust him.

I am his key to answers, to soothing his injured pride. And he is my god.

I almost make it sound as if I have a choice. 

His eyes flicker to the woman behind me and he folds his hands in front of him. I feel the world – the air – shift.

"If it could close the rift – " The woman says, striding over to me, to us, as he allows time to resume. "It could close the Breach."

"It is possible." Fen'Harel says, "It appears that you hold the key to their salvation. It seems that your continued existence is somewhat ensured."

Your answers. Your answers are somewhat ensured, you mean.

He smiles like he has heard my thoughts. Who knows? He might have had. He is a god.

He is a god who's magic is bound to my own.

"Maybe." I answer for us both -

"Good to know." The dwarf says, and I turn to him. I watch the woman's face sour with annoyance. She knows him. "Here I was beginning to think we'd be ass-deep in demons forever. Varric Tethras, rogue, story teller, and occasional unwelcome tag-along." He throws a wink at the woman, and her lip curls.

Fen'Harel laughs, low and vaguely startled.

"Ah, the trappings of drama never do cease to appeal. Even in times of crisis, apparently. _Mortals_."

"Are you with the Chantry? Or – "

Fen'Harel's laugh is lighter this time, _fond_ , he rolls his head on his neck. leaning back – "Is that a _serious_ question? Or – ?"

" _Technically,_ I'm a prisoner. Just like you."

I wonder if he's been accused of destroying a Chantry and has been bonded to a god, too. Do the children of stone have gods?

"I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine. Clearly that is no longer necessary."

Story?

Both Fen'Harel and I look between the two with confusion, eagerness. What story?

The dwarf levels the woman with a flat look – "Yet, here I am. Lucky for you. Considering current events."

"It is good to meet you, Varric." The hard syllables of his name click in my mouth. Awkward.

"You may reconsider that stance in time." Fen'Harel says. He sounds – relaxed, almost. I do not know if I like it. I do not know if I like the sound of his voice.

It is smooth and it is elegant. It is everything you would expect from the one who tricked the Gods and the Forgotten ones into accepting him as one of them, both. It is the voice of a liar.

A deceiver. Honey and sweet and velvet and silks. It makes it too easy to forget that he is the wolf, even when he chooses to appear as a man.

I do not want to forget.

Fen'Harel may be a god, may be one of the gods I worship, even.

But I must not _forget_.

I watch as he and the woman – Cassandra – argue about his involvement. I do not understand why she does not want him to come with us. I want him to come – he seems – he seems pleasant, enough. At the very least, he would be a barrier between her and me. I do not understand why she wishes to leave behind a pair of useful hands.

He convinces her that he will come. She makes a disgusted noise and stomps away. Like a child.

Varric smiles at me.

His crossbow is named Bianca.

I follow, the wolf at my shadow.

 


	2. The Breach: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is this the wrath of heaven the shemlen fear so much? I understand why they fear their Maker, then. I do not know why they love him.

Another rift, close to a gate up an incline. I – we – dodge, I trust the shem and the child of stone to keep me alive long enough to seal this.

The mark on my palm is hungry, _he_ is hungry. I have never known magic to be so hungry – demons, spirits, the Fade, those are hungry things, hungry works, but magic itself has never been hungry to me.

She bites her cheek and his magic surrounds her, swells against her skin as she flinches away from a wisp's flame.

"Carefully." He cautions in her ear a warm brush of air against her cheek, but when she turns he is away again. The wolf is not laughing, not mocking – she thinks she knows this.

She does not know what his game is.

I am still afraid – this is bigger and more dangerous than warding away bears and wolves and shems has ever been.

I do not need him to coax me into this, I thrust my hand before me before the mark can sing-scream to the magic in the air above us. The connection is instant.

It is not easier, any less painful, this time.

The mark is hungry and angry, it wants to be whole again, and I am not its master.

Work with me, you need me, I cannot help you if you resist at every step, I _will not die here, not yet_ -

His magic swells, almost soothes, not an apology, and the knot slides into my mana, resistant, but slowly, slowly relaxing. Fading and falling apart. Untangling as it dissolves into something raw and glittering.

The thread snaps – the song is dissonant. More demons.

"They're amassing strength. Solidity." The wolf says, and I flinch as his magic coats my skin – deflecting another attack from a wisp. He frowns at the rift. "It may take more than once. My magic resists you – your mortal vessel. It recognizes that you are too frail, too small to contain it, and so it turns away from you. You will have to coax it out, into you, in intervals."

"Do we have time for such a thing?"

"I said it would take intervals." Fen'Harel says, waving a hand and the barrier around me expands to slow and dampen, absorb, a claw of a demon of fear. It screams at me, tossing its head back, hands curling at its sides. But the sound is muted, the world is muted in the bubble of his-our magic.

It is _our_ magic.

His magic is insidious, curling and mixing with my mana. Inflating it, charging it as I charge the air for lightning. He pushes it, swells it, magnifies it. It is mine, but it tastes like his, too.

The veins in leaves and stone.

"I did not say you should space these intervals _out_." He continues as we watch Cassandra draw the demon's ire. I do not know how she does it. I cannot imagine that her fear tastes better than mine. "Quickly, or it will rebuild itself to its original state. The longer you wait the stronger the magic gets. And as the magic builds the veil is torn, it cannot handle such magic condensed into one space."

"Like me."

Fen'Harel laughs, and he steps close enough for me to feel his words against my cheek. His body bend-curve-bows so his mouth is close to my ear – and nothing else.

"Not at all. Actually." Then he is himself, or not himself once more as he straightens, " _Close it_."

It takes two more tries for me to coax all of his magic out of the air, and for the Veil to heal itself.

More shems.

The other woman from the prison – that is the word, the place shems put their undesirables, trapped away from light and sound and sky, their torture chambers of stone and silence and dank – is there, as well. And one of the leaders of their Chantry.

He orders me in chains and the wolf snarls from somewhere behind me.

"The _arrogance_."

I almost laugh because who is he to talk?

"Is not one concerned with the hole in the sky?" I whisper, half to myself. Fen'Harel laughs.

"Mortals squabble over the strangest of things." He says, standing by the edge of the bridge to watch the Breach. "Their priorities have always been _skewed_. Prejudice, fear, ambition. Their lives are short, their hearts – easily clouded. They work themselves out in time, of course."

As he speaks Cassandra and the woman named Leliana close ranks against the Chancellor. Varric mutters something under his breath that I cannot hear. The mark flares on my palm and they turn to me.

" _Now_ you're listening to _me_?" I can't help the anger in my words. The situation is ridiculous – I have gone from prisoner to savior to guilty party to someone worth asking advice? Foolishness.

What would I know of shem battles and scouts and mountains?

Ask me about trees and poison and running-hiding-escaping and I could weave you epics. Ask me about defenses and scouts and strategies and you might as well be asking a tree. Heh. Or their silent _Maker_.

"The faster route." Fen'Harel says. "The quicker this is over with the better. The fewer who die in front of you, the better as well. Every soldier of theirs who dies is another name they add to your list of supposed crimes."

I know that. I know.

Cassandra frowns at me when I look towards the mountain pass. But Leliana looks me over with something shifting, like clouds and waters, in her eyes. She smiles at me.

A dangerous thing.

I swallow cold and move.

I am not used to such cold climes, and it must show in the way my fingers hesitate to curl around the ladder slats and the way my jaw aches with every chattering clench.

Varric's hand is wide and warm as he holds his hand to my back. "Easy, girly."

My feet are numb and I feel awkward moving. Like a clumsy child. I don't understand how people manage it – how Cassandra and Varric are able to move so well.

I feel cut off – I can't feel the earth beneath my feet and between my toes, the groove and roughness of it. I suppose that's a good thing in the snow. But it is disorienting to be cut off from it for so long.

Another rift – the missing scouts – _save them, save them_ -

"You are growing proficient at this." The wolf observes as we walk away. The scouts look grateful to me. It is an odd sensation – shems thanking me.

"Practice makes perfect." I whisper back. Time continues to move, and I would rather not be thought insane as well as a possible murderer of the shem's Divine. Fen'Harel hums and fades away from my vision once more.

Where does he go, she thinks, when I cannot see him. Is he still there, still conscious, still with me, or is he just elsewhere? Is he watching, listening, still?

Does he continue to exist if he does not touch this world and there is nothing to acknowledge his presence?

The shems think their Maker exists even if they have never seen-heard-spoken-touch-taste-smelled him. I suppose if they could believe that, I can believe that Fen'Harel continues in my shadow.

I can feel it – the ground is cold, but it radiates magic – when we reach the site of the Conclave. What was once a grand cathedral of stone and glass and metal is now barren.

Ash still flitters in the air, and I can smell the remnants of flames. I suck my teeth, recoiling against the magic that lingers. It is wrong, somehow, tainted.

There is darkness here.

"There was another here." Fen'Harel says, voice low, grave. "Step with caution. I know not what has affected the magics here. The Veil is weak and there have been many deaths here. Enough to draw demons even without this _Breach_."

There is a body – several bodies, ash and crumbling. Statues of terror that reach for safety, for help – long beyond saving.

Is this the wrath of heaven the shemlen fear so much? I understand why they fear their Maker, then. I do not know why they love him.

We move through the Temple of Sacred Ashes – the name leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

I can feel the yawning maw of the Breach above us. It calls to me – to the wolf, to us both. It feels wrong. It feels like too much. It feels like too _many_. It doesn't make sense, but the word fits.

Much and many.

I can almost hear him thinking, puzzling through this – why the word fits.

As we round a corner, there are more bodies. Petrified, unrecognizable. Their skin like leather, teeth like little rocks, eyes missing. Just black holes that make my stomach churn.

The Breach feeds into a large rift. Sealed – like the gemstone-song-prison of the rifts from before. But this one is large. Bursting with magic, like a scab over a wound. A scab gone wrong. Scar tissue. A cancer. Too much, growing on itself endlessly moving, shifting. The song overlaps and tangles in on itself.

She stares at it, something like awe and dim recognition and fear on her face.

This is where I was reborn – Fen'Harel's and no one's.

It's high up -

"The Breach is a _long_ way up."

I hear her arrive before she speaks. Her with many archers, many soldier. Not enough – I don't think. Could there ever be enough to fight _this_?

"You're here, thank the Maker."

"Leliana, have your men take up positions around the temple." Cassandra says, and I hear their feet move over ash and stone.

She rips her eyes away from the rift, and Cassandra faces her. There is concern, there. Fear. Courage building. Good. They might just survive this after all. "This is your chance to end this, are you ready?"

"I'm assuming you have a plan to get me up there." The words come out of my mouth with my voice, but I don't know why I said that. I don't know how I can even talk.

I feel the faint ripple as time slows, stops between us once more.

"This rift is the first, it is the _key_." Fen'Harel says, shaking his head next to me, eyes fixed on the crystal scab. "Whether this actually works the way _anyone_ expects it to or not – it is unclear."

Worry.

I turn to face the Dread Wolf.

"But it _will_ do _something_."

"Something, yes. What it does, exactly, remains unclear." He turns to face me fully and I raise my chin. His mouth is a flat line. "This is the largest one you have encountered thus far. A great deal of mana has been condensed into it. More than you have already fed to the mark. Enough that it _knows_ , it _wants_ to return to the rest of it. To me. But it is a lot. It will take – most likely – more than one or two attempts for it to be drained completely. The demons this one produces will most likely be much stronger, as well." He clenches his jaw. "If the explosion that caused this and gave you that mark – " He juts his chin at my hand, "Did not kill you. This one almost certainly might. Are you ready?"

"It does not matter if I am ready or not." I reply.

The wolf almost looks sad.

"No. I suppose it does not."

He turns away and time resumes.

A voice – deep, echoing, sounding out from the air itself.

"Now, is the hour of our victory."

I jog along the edges of the building, and there are – strange crystals. I would think they were lyrium because of the song of mana within them, but they are red. Glittering like crystal blood and the song of the mana within them is wrong. Discordant. Tensing and rising, it makes my chest tighten.

"Bring forth the sacrifice."

"What are we hearing?" Cassandra says, and when I – he, she, we – turn to look at her, she's looking at the rift.

"At a guess – " The wolf says, and I follow, "The person who created the Breach."

It is not the wolf's voice. At least I know my theory was correct.

Fen'Harel was not behind this. He was wronged, as much as the shems and I have been wronged.

You are a fool to wrong a god.

The Dalish love and fear our gods. We respect them and wish to do anything to turn their ire and attention away from us. We are not like the shems. We do not want our gods watching us always.

To gain the attention of a god – any god – is to court disaster.

Cassandra and Varric start talking about the angry red crystals that jut out of the ground.

It _is_ lyrium.

And it came from Kirkwall – which is – _very, very far from here_.

We are close to the blast center. And tension tightens the corners of her mouth and makes her skin clammy.

"Someone – help me!" A woman's voice, Orlesian and afraid.

"That is the _Divine_."

"What's going on here?"

And that is _me_.

I swallow, and my mouth tastes bitter. The mark stirs. Not painful, not violent – it just – _wakes_. It is responding, calling to something.

"That was _your_ voice. Most holy called out to you – but –"

We look up, and the area around the rift distorts. Changes. A woman in the robes of the shemlen Chantry – suspended, their Divine, afraid.

A shadow with eyes, smoke and red, speaks, repeating the words of earlier. It is like watching a story-dance. I do not know what is happening, but I feel like I do. I have seen this dance before. I am the third dancer.

And there I am – Fade-green in this vision, as I appear in my borrowed shemlen clothes, stumbling onto something. I know not what.

"Run while you can. Warn them!" The Divine says, and the vision fades as the smoke and eyes orders my death.

The vision disappears and I am oddly relieved. It was not the shemlen god, it was not Fen'Harel.

It was a man, a shadowed figure, but a man and men can be killed. Men can be found. Men can be hated and blamed.

Cassandra rounds on me and I watch the figure of the Dread Wolf move forward, closer to the rift.

"You _were_ there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she – is this vision true? _What_ are we seeing?"

"I _don't remember_." I repeat.

"Echoes of happened here. The Fade _bleeds_ into this place." Fen'Harel says, "The Veil is weakened by this, by the deaths. Spirits want to come through. This rift is closed, you must force it open to begin the process, to close it properly. Permanently."

Cassandra orders the shemlen to stand at the ready.

"The Fade is weak." I tell her, "And this tear is – it's bigger than the other ones. It could be more dangerous." She nods at me.

"Understood."

I can see the green of their archers taking their positions. Even the woman named Leliana is there among them, jumping down with her bow drawn to stand by Varric.

Cassandra nods at me, her shield up, sword drawn.

"Begin." Fen'Harel says.

I reach my hand forward, and push. It is like calling lightning, but into myself instead of towards another. It is like calling an entire _storm_ into myself.

It takes a lot to not flinch.

We hear it before we see it. As the rift tears open – there is a deep rumbling laugh. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

 _Pride_.

We of the Dalish do not learn magic like those of the shemlen Circles. Our magic is our own, learned in our own way, tailored for our own uses.

I am the First of my clan, would-have-been-future-Keeper of the Lavellans.

I know the ways of a _Keeper_. I do not know the ways of a fighter. I can make the roots bend to my will, I can call on the beast to howl and hunt at my side. I can heal and I can cover my presence. I know how to run and hide and conceal from sight and hearing and smell. I know how to call frost and fire and lightning when I need to. But I was not trained to fight demons.

My magic was honed to hunt, to hide, to survive in the wilderness.

It was not meant for combat. Not like this. Not this kind of warfare.

I am lucky that I have come this far.

I run as far out of reach of the demons as I can while staying close enough to pull at the rift. The demons are preoccupied with the other fighters, and the wolf casts his barriers over me. I wonder if anyone else realizes that it is not my mana, not my magic that swells – invisible and powerful – around me. I suppose I am lucky that they do not. How would I answer?

The mark hums to life, unfurling like a flower or like the hungry lips of wolves and bears and foxes, and snatches at the rift's magic in the air.

The first wave of magic almost makes me stumble. I dig my heels into the ground and grind my teeth. The light burns my eyes, makes the space in the middle of my forehead hurt. Ache. A dull throb that promises to turn into something much more debilitating if this goes on.

"Don't look away." Fen'Harel says, raising his voice above the laughter of the demon and the shouts of the shemlen. "Never look away in a fight."

My mouth is so dry, and it is almost a relief when the connection snaps, wavers, and the rift spits out more demons. I raise my hand to start again, tired – I just want this to be over – and limbs shaking. The magic is too much. I am a cup, full to the brim, and it all threatens to spill over my edges, making me disappear along with it.

I am a form and a container, but this is too much for any one vessel to hold.

My hand raises, and I hear a scream.

Despair.

My hand curls into a fist and I run. It screeches and flies after me, hands raising to claw, to push, to dig into my flesh. I run on tired legs, trying to avoid both it and the demon of Pride – the shemlen blades bounce off its thick hide, and I catch a glimpse of Cassandra's face. Frozen into a determined sneer.

An arrow strikes the demon that chases me, and it whirls onto its attacker – Varric, who reloads with a grim look sent my way.

If only there was time to thank him.

Behind him another demon rises – and my eyes widen – _No!_

I fling out my other hand, a sweeping gesture and I feel myself cast without knowing it. As my hand, the one with the staff, sweeps out, magic gathers – drawn to the staff's head, swirling and curling and spiraling like a wind. And I send it to him.

A barrier swarms into place, dampening the blow and giving him time to get out of the way as both demons start pursuing him. He looks at me and smiles, and before my eyes he disappears. Invisible. Still within the barrier. But unseen.

I stare with wide eyes but there is no time to gawk.

It takes two more tries to seal the rift. This time, for good.

As I watch the magic unravel – it changes. It feels different.

If before they were knots that were melting into me, this time, it spins itself. It undoes itself. Smoothens itself out into something whole and hale.

I can feel it as I sink to my knees, magic pushing into me, swirling eddies in my veins, churning. It gyres within me, lashing out at my own feeble, mortal mana, shredding through it with its own divinity.

My skin, veins, bones glow and the world seizes on itself as the magic pours into my blood. It attempts to force itself back out, when it finds me an uncomfortable and unfitting vessel. The wolf's hand closes around my hand – still held up in the air.

His face swims into view, but I am blinded by the light of the rift, and my vision swims. The magic roars in my ears and nothing feels right.

I cannot see his face. I see only darkness and light.

The magic churns, a violent storm within me. Like waves crashing on rocks.

But I am not a rock, and it is an understatement to call the magic of a god a wave.

If there are words to describe the scope of this, I do not have them.

The space between my eyes burns, aches. A headache screaming itself into a migraine. Like someone has dug their fingers into my skull, white-hot and burning faster. Melting me. Burning me.

The wolf's shadow draws closer as I slowly fall.

The silence is echoing, and it hurts my ears with its magnitude. Darkness begins to swallow everything else as I realize that _it is over_ -

I do not fall. I am lowered. Gently. Slowly.

I do not feel it when my head touches the ground.

I do not feel anything at all, really – aside from the storm that rages within me, and around me. A storm of mana that is and isn't mine.

A touch, cool and protecting on my brow.

"Sleep."

I will.


	3. Haven I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Our." I say licking dry lips, and his eyes flick to me, eyebrow raised. "Our actions, hahren. Yours was the hand that guided me."

**-**

Sunlight – it is warm, feels good on my skin, my face. My shoulders and my palms. Grass is soft, damp – early morning – smells nice, smells like _home_ -

Home is wherever I am.

\- and I can feel the damp seep through my clothes. Good. Right. Natural.

No stone and no snow -

Wait. _No stone. No snow_.

The sky is blue – it was green, before, green like my palm – I turn and look, no. No mark. No scar -

Why would I expect a scar – wait. _Wait_.

Nothing hurts when I sit up, but when I reach for it – my magic slips from my fingers. It's there. But small. Tired.  Like a slick of hoarfrost, melting at the touch and disappearing.

I do not know where I am.

The grass is green and the trees are lush, but the sun shines warm and this is nowhere I know. It's too quiet. No birds. No sounds. _Wrong_ for all that it is right and good. I put my feet under me – bare feet, I am wearing the dress Keeper gave me when I gained my vallaslin. I have not worn this dress – I did not bring this dress -

I outgrew it.

It fits perfectly, still. I pull up one of the shoulders, twisting to press my nose to the fabric. Smells like home. Halla and magic on iron-bark, the embroidery feels the same, too.

The ring around my finger is missing, though.

 _It's not adding up right_   -

"You're catching on quicker, this time. That speaks well of you."

Familiar.

I turn.

The wolf sits, a man, cross legged at the base of a statue of himself. His eyes are closed, fingers tangled in his lap. Like he's meditating.

"The Fade." I say, even though the answer does not matter, we both know. And now that I have spoken it I can see. The way the leaves glow, softly, like light-bugs, and I can hear the faint whisper-song of magic sliding through the trees.

"Yes."

It takes me time to put the pieces together, and I have to sit down again.

"The Breach?" I ask -

"I know not. You fell unconscious from the strain." The wolf says, eyes opening to slits. "I did not think you would survive, in all honesty. I was waiting for you."

"I live?"

His lips twitch upwards, a small laugh as he inclines his head, eyes falling closed once more. "You live to see another day, yes."

I sit and absorb this – I am mortal and I took a god's power, I should not. It is the greatest arrogance, the greatest foolishness -

My hands are and are not my own as I look at them. No ring. No mark. But now that I am aware, I can search it out. My own magic is weak because there is so much of _his_ within me. I am drained, he is not. He grows strong off of my weakness.

"Explain this to me." I ask.

"There is precious little to tell you. I am just as much in the dark as you, anything I could tell you is mere theory and conjecture, at this point." The wolf says. He is displeased, he does not like this confusion, this ignorance, as much as I do. Fen'Harel, in the stories, has never taken kindly to being kept in the dark. He opens his eyes fully.

Blue-grey-power, washing over her and her heart stutters like a rabbit's, but she holds her head up strong and refuses to allow it to sway her. Good girl. Smart.

Has potential.

"At this moment, in the waking world, you survive. You are hale and whole. Of this I am certain." He says, "Whatever else has occurred – whether you remain a prisoner, or if you have been abandoned by the humans, if the Veil has been repaired, I know not. I am not there, after all."

"Where _are_ you?" I ask, frowning, tucking my legs under me, digging my fingers into the soil. Just to feel the damp. Grounded. Good.

"Irrelevant." Fen'Harel waves a hand. I open my mouth to protest. He silences me with a push of his aura – it is only a small fraction, smaller than the power fed into the mark, but it pushes through me quickly. Fast, sharp, like a blast of a cold wind, and it makes me skin prickle and hair stand on end. My mouth clicks shut and I dig my nails into my knees. I swallow hard, bite my cheek, and hold. "I have been in _unethera_ for quite some time. I have woken enough to know what your _Dalish_ – "

He spits the word with such scorn that I almost flinch.

" – say of me and what the fate of the elves that have fallen into human hands. I am uninterested in such matters, and so I return to my sleep." Fen'Harel's eyes dig into my skin. "I am content with being left to my own devices. But I dislike it when others take what is mine into their own hands. You have done _something_ to the rifts. Some _one_ has taken my power to create them. I would know who."

"You are the one who hunts alone." I say, careful. Careful, careful, careful. I feel like a halla alone in the dark. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Because as circumstances would have it, our paths are temporarily bound together for the foreseeable future. As much as you or I dislike it. You control a portion of my power, and are key to my understanding of how these events have come to pass." Fen'Harel is so very still and I force my shoulders back under his scrutiny. "There is much to be done. Your Dalish have not trained you for combat, and it appears that you have found yourself tied into a war. You show aptitude, promise. You are a quick learner. I will teach you."

"You will _what_?"

He raises an eyebrow.

"Your grasp on lightning is passable. But you are dismally inadequate in your handling of the other elements. And your barriers are weak, like bubbles at best. While it is true that my consciousness is, in part, bound to yours and as such I am compelled to keep you safe, I will not hold your hand through this entire ordeal. I do not accept being bound to someone helpless."

I grind my teeth.

"I am not _helpless_." My magic is tuned towards the earth and trees, the gentle rain and the gathering of wind. There is a difference between being ill suited for a situation and being _helpless_.

"In battle you are." Fen'Harel replies, "Will you continue to argue this, or will you allow me to correct this flaw in your training?"

How many can say that they have been offered lessons in magic from the Dread Wolf, himself? I swallow, and call on my own magic – drained, so little, so small, tired. Weak and sluggish.

I feel his mana against mine, testing me, a push and a touch that feels like the clinical push and prod of someone checking a bruise.

"It takes time to learn." I say. "And I have not recovered."

"That is not an answer." He replies, "This is the Fade. It is magic itself, the source of all mana. It matters not if your own is depleted. You may practice using my own. You should be familiar with it, if you plan on using it. And as you know, time flows differently in dreams. Do you wish to learn?"

I push myself onto my feet, and with every step towards him I feel a little more afraid, but a little more certain. There is no turning back from this, I have no excuses and no arguments.

I slowly fall onto one knee before him, pressing my middle and pointer finger of my right hand to my heart, and with my left I extend my palm, index and little finger loosely curled inwards, thumb, pointer, and middle curved outwards, to him.

She takes the pose of supplication. Old, it stirs memories that hurt and feel warm. Her head is bowed to the side, and the line of her throat is unbroken. A swan's neck, a graceful curve like an arc of water that leads down to her small shoulders – the curve and dip of shadows over her bones and skin -

"I am ready, hahren." Her voice is quiet, subdued.

Does she know what she offers?

No.

He drags his fingertips over the heel of her palm, feeling the warm flush of the heart of her skin, slowly, down over her palm and down her fingertips.

Her mana flickers, and her belly clenches a little at the feeling.

I can feel his magic curling around me, like arms, like wings, a yawning thing that lazily stretches to swallow me whole.

"Come then, _da'len_." His voice curls around the word and when I dare to look up he looks amused. He stands, and looks into the woods of the Fade. "There is much for you to learn. But for now, I think we shall begin with the basics. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, hahren." I say, rising to my feet. I flex my left hand, trying to shake his feather touch from me. I put my hands behind my back and follow him into the Fade.

Regardless of circumstances, it is an honor to learn from the Dread Wolf. Knowledge should be gained whenever possible. And perhaps I could bargain my way back into the clan's favor with this. Even if it did come from the One Who Hunts Alone.

"You work well with a staff, and your control over lightning is startlingly proficient for one who struggles with the baser elements." He says as we move through the wood. Or perhaps the wood moves around us, it is hard to tell in the Fade.

Catches, glimpses of wisps – sliding, gliding, peaking out from between branches and underbrush. Glowing little hearts that beat in time to something that is not seen or heard.

"Lightning is calming." I say, the words spilling out of my mouth without any real thought. "It makes _sense_."

The wolf glances at me over his shoulder, I have caught his interest. In a good way, perhaps.

I do not know why I am so bold. Perhaps it is because I need him, or he needs me. Maybe it is the Fade. Maybe it is the knowledge that he is not here, that he sleeps – possibly far away. But the wolf does not need form to hurt, does he?

It is his face, I think. He is a man. And he is soft spoken and his words are velvet coated and he looks like anyone else. Taller, broader – yes. But he looks normal. He blends into the space.

Perhaps it is all of the above. Or maybe it is his doing.  His magic soothing me into something almost complacent. Placid.

We stop, or the woods stop us, at a clearing with a brook. We start with ice, then. I know this without him saying anything.

Of the baser elements, I do slightly better with ice.

His silence asks her to explain, and she rocks on the balls of her feet, fingers worrying her empty ring finger as she toys with a ring that is not there.

"It's – " I cannot find words. It is so hard to explain. "It just makes sense. It's a chain reaction. You just need to tell it where to go, guide it."

"Most would say otherwise." Fen'Harel says, head tilted in curiosity. "It is considered chaotic. Wild. Hard to control, willful in its own way. Dangerous if it backfires. After all, lightning cannot be countered as fire and ice can be."

I frown and I try to put it into words -

"But – That's not true. Lightning is everywhere, always. It's just waiting. Waiting to be called on. It's – " I struggle, and I feel foolish. My hands gesture, useless, in front of me, as if they can say what I cannot. "It's _potential_ , it just needs to be woken, guided. It wants to be used. It's waiting for someone to tell it how."

I close my eyes and picture the network in my mind. It is so hard to give words to it, to give form to something I have always considered natural. I imagine the flecks of energy gathered, aimlessly and blindly colliding and fumbling in the air, in all things, and the way you can link them with mana. A little taste of energy that makes them glow and spark and shake in the air as you link them like stars in the sky, like constellations.

The wolf is silent.

"If you can see that within lightning, then it should be easy for you to grasp fire and ice as well." He says, "You are simply unused to seeing their patterns."

I open my eyes. There is no judgment in his gaze. Something evaluating, something calculating – but nothing derisive. I flounder a little in that.

The Keeper has always been exasperated with me, even our clan's second had been confused. I never could explain it right, how it was so easy to call on lightning – useless for the clan, flashy and loud and dangerous and not at all good for everyday tasks – and I could barely get a fire going and could only call upon the most meager of chills.

 _It is not that hard, da'len_ , the Keeper would say, weariness showing around her eyes as I try to fight my own hurt when the flame sputters at my fingertips. Too hard to control, too hard to grasp, slipping through me like air and my fingers like sand.

The only reason why I was not demoted to second for this failure – failure to even conjure the simplest of flames – was because I was better at everything else. I knew the lore like my own heartbeat, and I was a quick learner.

Fen'Harel gestures at the water.

"They are all particles with potential, da'len." He says, "The patterns are simply different. You see the energy in the atmosphere, there is energy within the earth and waters, as well. Calling upon them to form different elements is simply arranging them in a different way. I imagine that lightning for you is much like a line. A branch where you connect the energy in the fastest way to your target. Yes?"

I nod, wary. Does he understand? Does the wolf see the lightning as I do?

Questions, there are so many questions on her face. The Dalish have lost so much knowledge, it hurts to see. Their birthright, squandered, forgotten, lost.

He can fix this, he can teach her. One elf, at least.

He coaxes me over to the water and kneels by the stream. I follow suit, wary. I am as close as I dare be.

"Watch. It is easier to show you in the Fade. In the waking world it will be harder, but the basic theory is the same." He holds his hand over the water, and I watch. He slowly lowers his palm to the rushing stream, barely touching it. I can feel his mana on the surface – just touching, not breaking. The water of the Fade lights up in response. And I stare, mouth parting as I watch.

"The energy in water is shifted and moves, imagine a still pool and a drop of ink or blood. It spreads, even when it appears still, does it not? The energy is moving there, as well. It is a matter of casting your mana out into it, and then pulling it towards you. Observe." I watch and I can feel his mana push out, into the water. I watch, and pieces of energy stop, caught like fish in a net. And then he draws his hand up, slowly, and the mana caught in the water follows his hand. Like a frozen image, stuck in their positions, and the water follows with him. "Tell me, da'len, do you understand the concept of how ice is formed?"

I press my lips together as I think -

"I think so. Ice is formed by water. When it is cold and there is enough water, it comes together. Condensing."

He hums. "Something like that." His fingers flex and the water hanging suspended underneath his hand freezes with a sharp crackle. "Do you see a difference in the mana?"

I focus, trying to see past the glaze of the frost. The wolf's mana glows brighter in response.

"Oh. They're – "

If before the mana in the water looked like stars – random and free floating – the mana now looks rigid. Straight. Tighter packed, condensed. Like they've been lined up. I can see the connections between them, as well. Faint lines – straight and spaced evenly, snapping and holding the mana in place.

"You're holding them instead of guiding them." I say, "The connections don't guide towards a target? They – they guide the mana into place."

"Yes." Fen'Harel says, sounding pleased. "Where lightning has potential and seeks a pathway to travel to achieve it, ice differs in that it needs to be caught and given form. It does not seek to be directed or activated, it simply _is_. It needs to be caught, contained. Do you understand?"

Caught. Contained. Held.

I look at my fingers, and I imagine it. Practice it in my mind.

Lightning wants to move, wants to be used. You draw a line for the lightning to follow, racing it to the target, guiding it and being guided by it in turn. It is – it is wild but playful and tumultuous.

Water and ice – it is already in motion. You have to stop it, place your mana before it and bind it into the shape you need it to be. It does not resist, it is – simply moving. It does not know where it wants to go or what it is doing, the mana simply _is_.

"Try."

I gather my mana to me, feel his own bolster mine as I hold my hand to the water. Just barely touching. I can feel the whirl and motion on my skin, a brush. Barely there. If I were to plunge my hand into the water altogether, I would feel the force of the water pushing against me. But on the surface it is a whisper.

I gather my mana, weaving it into a net – different for water than lightning. There are holes for lightning, you don't want to catch every particle. For lightning you cast a line, singular, for that one trail of energy to ignite. For water you cast a mesh net – fine, like a sieve. You want to catch as much substance as possible.

"Good." He says.

Excitement builds in my chest. I catch the particles and hold them fast. There is no resistance, they are content to be caught. I marvel at it – could it be this easy in the physical world?

"Now draw."

I slowly raise my hand. I can feel the change as the water moves to my will. Slight resistance as other particles of energy move to fill the space vacated by the mana I caught. I raise it, small drops slipping from my grasp and control to rejoin the rest of the water. But I manage to hold most of it.

"Now freeze it. It helps to use your hands to channel."

I clench my fingers like he did, a sharp curling motion to lock the mana in place and form the links.

It is harder than it looks. It is like many, many strands of lightning, all connecting together at once.

"Draw them into order. Align them."

I bite my lip, and it is not as instantaneous as it was when he did it. It takes me a few moments, but I get it. I hold ice – more ice than I have ever made before.

Excitement and pride well up in my chest -

"Good." He says. "For a first attempt."

His finger touches my ice and I feel a tendril of  his mana push out. "You have cracks, da'len. It is not frozen all the way through. There are pockets of liquid." I feel them, as his mana moves through the ice. He rattles and jostles the bonds I made and shows me the weaknesses. "It will come with practice."

He curls his finger and the ice shatters. I flinch as the cold water hits my face and the rest of it falls into the stream. Washed away. It hurts a little, the sudden breaking of my spell. The recoil.

"Again."

I lower my hand to the water. Again. And again. And again.

It seems like only a few minutes later when he says _enough_.

"You have a basic grasp of this. There are other things you must learn before you wake." He is looking at the sky. Can he tell the time in the Fade? How long it has passed? "And you will need to wake soon. But before you do you must work on your barriers."

I feel flush with excitement. Ice. I have made ice where I could almost never make ice before. I am learning so much -

"Yes." I breathe out.

He is the Dread Wolf and I am supposed to be a First, I am supposed to ward him off. But I cannot. If we are linked, I will take advantage of this situation however I can.

He makes it all seem so _simple_.

I know not if it is the Fade, or if he is truly this charismatic. Is it his mana bleeding into my own, as it slid through the cracks in my ice?

It almost doesn't seem to matter.

 _I made ice_.

The wolf turns to me, smile playing on his lips. He is amused by me. My inept ability to use magic, my excitement to learn, my simple pleasure over figuring out the most basic of things? I do not know. I don't care.

Fen'Harel is amused by many things in the stories. I think I would be amused, too, if I were in his position.

A fool of a girl who can barely use magic and being bound to her – I suppose he needs his entertainment where he can get it. He once played all manner of tricks on people far greater than I. Why should I expect any better?

It hurts and rankles, but he is a god.

Let it go, I think. Let it go.

We move towards the center of the clearing.

"You have never used barriers before." I nod. "Wards?"

"A few."

"It is the same basic premise." He says, creating a small flame in his palm. I watch as the barrier shimmers around it. A perfect globe of mana that glitters before fading into invisibility. After a moment he flexes his mana, pushes it back into being visible. "To create a ward you make a space on a flat surface. A sensitive net that reacts towards specific sensations. An if-then scenario. You do not set wards to react to wind or leaves, after all. They would be quite useless if they did."

I nod.

"To create a barrier you do something similar to that. You create a shell with your mana, keyed towards hostility. Physical blows from enemies. It is much like casting ice. You hold your mana in place creating tight bonds between particles."

I trace the lines of his mana with my eyes, he holds his hand out to me. I look up and he nods. Slowly, I reach out and push against the barrier with my hand. It seems flawless. I cannot imagine how many connections he had to make in order to form it.

"At the temple you created a barrier. A weak and quite short lived one, if I had left it to its own devices." He says. "And the technique was flawed. But it is a start. Cast your energy like a net. But rather than close, suspend it in shape. For now I think it would be best if you practiced with incomplete barriers. Focusing on strengthening one particular side or area rather than maintaining a solid and even barrier all around. We are pressed on time, even here in the Fade. With practice you will be able to concentrate on expanding that area  until it encompasses the entire barrier."

I nod, and he dispels his barrier.

"Try a few times here. Then it will be time for you to wake." He is looking at the sky again. "I am curious to know what the results of your actions were."

"Our." I say licking dry lips, and his eyes flick to me, eyebrow raised. "Our actions, hahren. Yours was the hand that guided me."

He inclines his head.

"Cast."


	4. Haven II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has caught the scent of his prey. Now we begin.

I awake to a feeling of _closeness_. A feeling of trapped, raised above the ground, suspended. Everything aches, but in a lingering good way that means that I am _alive_ and that the worst of it has passed.

Underneath my palms I can feel the scratchy fabric of a blanket, and it gives under my weight – soft, I sit up. I am in a shemlen bed, and there is a soft gasp that makes my shoulders jerk in surprise. I turn and an elven girl stares at me with wide eyes. She stammers before throwing herself on the ground before me.

My stomach churns -

_Unbroken, never will we surrender -_

She stammers and looks at me like I am divine, like I am a piece of the Fade made mortal, like I am Mythal or the shem Andraste herself. Reverent. It is wrong. It is so very, very wrong, and I feel sick even as she runs from me.

I am mortal. I am a woman. I am flesh and blood and bone. Why does she fear me – why does she look at me like _that_?

It is so very, very wrong.

(Does this make me like a shem? I do not want to be a shem in her eyes. In their eyes. I do not want that. I don't want any of this – )

"They say you saved us. The Breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand. It's all anyone has talked about for the last three days. The Breach is still in the sky. I'm certain the Lady Cassandra will want to see you. _At once_ she said."

As I get up, she recoils from me. Curls away from me, hands knotting against her chest as she gets ready to flee. It makes my heart heavy.

"Where is she?" I ask, as gently as possible. Is it because of the mark? Because I supposedly killed the shem Divine? Is it because I am Dalish and a mage?

Why does she _look at me like that?_

"In the Chantry, with the Lord Chancellor. _At once_ , she said."

I watch her flee, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder as the door swings shut behind her. My heart mourns.

My mana flexes around me, weak – but stronger than it felt in the Fade. More stable. More _mine_ , less _his_. The wolf's magic lingers within me, but it lies still. A calm ocean, a frozen lake. Quiet. It feels like it lines my bones, coats my veins, like armor. Curled around me, waiting. Settled. Watching.

As I close my eyes, I call the memory to me. There will be time to see if I can reproduce my efforts in the waking world, but for now -

Cassandra wishes to speak with me. Is this the trial I was promised?

Hahren does not flicker into view around me, and my shadow is only my own in the silence. Questions, questions – so many, bubbling up like a stream and swirling in my mind like gold-colored autumn leaves -

Where is he, truly? Where does he go? How does he _know_ things when he has slept for so long? Sleeps still? How does this mark work? How did I gain it? Each questions spirals into a new one and it all seems so very _impossible_.

Improbable, perhaps. I survive. It cannot be impossible. Just – unlikely. Incredibly unlikely.

Am I unlucky?

The cabin door opens underneath my touch, and I flinch back – the snow is blinding white, and the air is brisk and cold.

I bite my cheek and take my first tentative steps out. I see people, peering at me from doorways, windows, tents. From between ranks of shems in green and brown and metal – soldiers and scouts – who all stand at attention when I draw near. I stare as they straighten up, one by one as I make my way through the village. They click their heels together, fisted hands crossing over their chests as they hold their heads high.

I recognize this – vaguely – from the few times I have been to shem cities and was _privelaged_ enough to be there at the same time as one of the shem nobles. It is a salute. It is -

More reverence in their eyes as they stare at me. They remind me of what the children of my clan looked like whenever one of our great hunters came back with a mighty stag or a bear. Awe.

I swallow, my dry throat clicking loudly in the silence.

I do not know exactly where anything is. But it appears not to matter.

Whenever a path diverges, or where a wall is not present, there is a line of soldiers. Each of them standing at salute, and whispers of people behind them. Watching me through the lines of soldiers and buildings. There is only one path to take. One path to walk.

Of course – I could – I suppose, break through the soldiers. Run like I'm in the forests and plains again. Scramble up the stone and wooden walls of the village and break out into the snow. It is a foolish thought. I wouldn't survive long and they would probably catch me. Maybe even hamstring me – like I've heard in the tales the hunters tell the young da'len when they get old enough to go off into the forest in twos and threes to do chores without supervision.

_Watch yourself, da'len. The shems are violent and vicious. If they sense prey in you they will run you down and cut your legs so you can no longer run. Like a hare in a snare or a doe in a trap._

I feel herded.

So many eyes, so much attention. It goes against everything I have ever learned.

Shem attention is _never_ good attention. Not for _elves_.

I swallow and images of Shartan losing his ears fly before my eyes.

I was promised a _trial_.

Are they upset because the Breach remains? I did my best. And it is closed. For now.

I find myself standing before the large wooden doors of the shem Chantry. They creak open when I give them a push with my hands and mana. Are _all_ shems capable of opening such heavy doors? No wonder they conquered us and held us under their heel for so long.

The Chantry smells of candles. Incense. Dust. It is – dark. Quiet. I dislike it immediately.

Is their Maker so severe? My gods do not seek to enclose us. We worship in the open under their stars and sky, on their grass and stone. These shems barricade themselves inside, in the dark. They whispers words that sound like curses and prophecies of ill omen with fervor in their eyes. Their Maker is so demanding for one who is ever absent. Constant reverence, his name always on someone's lips.

There is no one here. So empty. So quiet -

At least – until I hear the shouting.

The doors at the end of the long room are closed. They look thick. But they do nothing at all to muffle the voices yelling inside. I recognize the woman's voice to be Cassandra's, and the man's voice to be the same as the one who argued with her and Leliana on the bridge. The one who called for my execution.

Is _this_ my trial?

It would mean nothing either way. They are not my hahren, my Keeper. But I would like to live just that much longer – find a way to escape death if they would drag it on long enough.

"Have you gone _completely mad?"_

I pull the door open.

The girl had said _at once_. She seemed afraid. I do not want Cassandra's ire to fall on her for my nerves and reluctance.

There is large table covered in paper and candles and books. The Chancellor stands on one side, lips curling up in distaste. As if he has smelled something foul. He points his finger at me, and I rock onto my heels, ready to run and to fling what little magic I have at whoever moves first.

"Chain her. I want her prepared for travel and trial."

Cassandra straightens from where she was leaning on the other side of the table.

"Disregard that. And leave us."

The shems behind me – they bear the mark of the flaming sword. I think that means templars. But I do not know. I have never been up close to a templar before.

I hear the soldiers leave.

"You walk a dangerous line, Seeker." The Chancellor sneers as he turns on her.

"The Breach is stable, but it is _still_ a threat. I will _not_ ignore it."

Cassandra is a brave and strong woman. I watch as she faces him, unyielding and sharp. Like the steel she wears so easily.

"I did all that I could. And I'm _still_ a suspect?" I say. I do not want them to forget this. I went willingly, I obeyed when it was against my every instinct to run and not look back. I did not falter. I fulfilled my promise.

 _I want my trial._ I want my _chance_. I think at her.

"You absolutely are." He spits out, and I am surprised when Cassandra spits venom and acid and condescension back.

"No, she is _not_."

" _Someone_ was behind the explosion at the conclave." Leliana's voice is like a knife in silk, soft with an edge of danger. The thread of _knowing_. The thread of power. She speaks like some of the elder hahren. " _Someone_ the Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others, or have allies who yet live."

 _"I_ am a suspect?"

"You and _many_ others."

"But not the _prisoner._ "

I look between the shems, watching their verbal sparring match go back and forth. I do not know where the wind will blow, but I hope it is on the side of Cassandra and Leliana.

"I _heard_ the voices in the temple, the Divine called to her for help." I bite my cheek at the sound of her voice. Even _her_  – she should know better, but even she has it. A small thread of _something_ that labels me as touched by her _Maker_.

No. Fen'Harel, I think. The wolf is in my shadow. He hunts us all. Your _Maker_ continues to be idle and unknowable.

"So her survival – that _thing_ on her hand – all a coincidence?"

 _"Providence_. The Maker sent her to us in our darkest our."

I can't let this go on. I am not blessed by their Maker and they need to understand that. I do not want their anger to fall on me when I fail to live up to their strange expectations, when this is all proven to be some strange twist of circumstance. The shems have a violent tendency to burn their _heroes_.

I am not here for this – I am -

I am here to find out who did this. Who dared to steal from the Dread Wolf and to what purpose.

"The Breach is stable now – what more do you want from me?"

The wolf wants his answers, and I would have them as well. I will not stay here if I cannot get them. Worse than not getting them – I will not stay if staying means it would erase the possibility to get them.

The want and hunger for knowledge has always been my worst and greatest weakness. It's gotten me into more trouble than anything else – my magic or my ears.

I can feel the wolf's magic start to stir, awaken. I have expect him to emerge in the corner of my eye. A whisper, a low word. Does the wolf get tired, I wonder – does this bond strain him?

"We must try again." Cassandra says, turning away to  one of the tables against the wall.

Leliana turns her head to me, but she still stands facing the Chancellor. "The Breach remains. And your mark is still our only hope of closing it."

It remains, yes, but it is no longer causing trouble. It sleeps like the wolf sleeps.

I bite my cheek. This they do not need to know.

"This is not for you to decide." The Chancellor snaps.

Cassandra stands between them, looking at him like he is the world's largest idiot before raising a heavy book and slamming it onto the table.

The Chantry's sun gleams dull silver on the cover and she jabs a finger onto the book.

"You know what this is, Chancellor. A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to _act_."

To what _purpose_? The Divine did not write that for the Breach. This – this writ of theirs predates me. Predates the misuse of Fen'Harel's stolen magic. It predates my problems and my interests.

Our problems and interests.

I can feel him stirring, sluggish. A slow whispering wave in the ocean of magic that waits inside of me. A ripple of curiosity.

Action I can understand. Better than this talking of authority and sanction and hierarchies.

When the Dalish have a problem, they do not bicker about how to do it, who should do it. We all know our places, who is best at what, who can do what, who works best together.

When we have a problem, _we fix it_.

"As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn." The what?

Cassandra advances on the Chancellor, I can almost taste her anger sizzling and spilling over. A soup pot left too long to boil without attention, threatening to drown its own fire even as it hisses away. "We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or _without_ your approval."

I am amused to watch him retreat from her.

I roll her words over in my mind – closing the Breach is something that benefits all. Finding those responsible is definitely that which the wolf and I seek.

The sooner I find whoever is responsible, the sooner I – we – can split from each other.

It may not have killed me _yet_ , but I am not fool enough to think that it won't _later_. I am not meant to hold the wolf's power inside of me. It is not my path.

Restoring order seems ambitious and righteous – it is not true order she seeks.

Shems above elves, stone and gravel and dirt trampling over green grass and temples with crowns of antlers and all seeing ravens. Chains eternal, a quickening like sand until blood is dust.

Elgar'nan burns and Mythal mourns. Falon'din holds us like petals in his hands.

June and Sylaise can not mend this hurt.

_Run, run, run._

There is no slow arrow.

Her order is not my order.

The Chancellor casts a disgusted look at us, and I curl my lip up at him to show my teeth.

The mana inside of me laughs, a brush against the back of my hand that I do not look at. I unclench my fist, and the scar sings to me, so softly. I run my thumb over it, and feel it calm.

Cassandra sighs, one hand raising to run through her hair as Leliana joins her at the head of the table.

"This is the Divine's directive. Rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos." She says, looking up at me. "We aren't ready. We have no leader. No numbers. And now, no Chantry support."

Cassandra looks to her. "But we have no choice. We must act now. With _you_ at our side."

I have many questions.

The stone walls squeeze in on me. The air is cool and dry. The statues of their Andraste seem to be watching me. I do not like  it here. I cannot hear the wind or the birds. I cannot hear anything in this stone room.

I don't know how shems can stand it. The silence.

They can't even feel the world underneath their feet.

"We'll see how this goes." I say, feeling the wolf's magic stirring. Ever curious. I want to be out of here. Out of this building, at least.

I need to know where I am.

The questions of what, exactly, I am getting into, may hold for now.

"That is all we ask." Leliana says.

"Help us fix this before it is too late." Cassandra holds out her hand. A shem gesture.

I take it, and her hand is warm and firm, squeezing my own tight in a brief shake. Her eyes glint in approval. Her lips curl up at the corners.

Bound on all sides. Fen'Harel in my shadow, this – this _Inquisition_ at my front. Stone all around me. Ice and snow in the air.

Shem everywhere I look.

I have been caught.

I leave the room, leave the Chantry. The people have dispersed and I run into the trees.

Conifers aren't the best for climbing, but it can be done if one is determined enough. The scratches on my face burn but the smell of pine is comforting. I watch from their safety as the shems move around Haven. I need to find exits. Pathways.

The village is small and in the middle of nowhere.

The Breach is a faint glow in the sky that calls to my blood.

I think I see the dark shadow of the wolf on the ground. But when I look he is not there.

From my place in the trees I can see the people. I do not see the girl from earlier, but I do see one or two more elves. All city elves – not one of them is marked with vallaslin.

They look so at _ease_ among the shems.

My heart sings for my clan. I cannot go back.

Fen'Harel is in my shadow.

I watch a man in fur walk from the gates towards the Chantry. Soldiers flock to him, swarming around him as he addresses each in turn before they are sent off elsewhere. Is he their Keeper? Their war master?

I suck in my breath and hold very still when he walks past, his head turns towards me and he starts to look up before someone else draws his attention.

Below me, the wolf growls. Low, soft. Dangerous.

I watch him enter the Chantry.

I spend hours watching and waiting, the wolf's shadow occasionally flickering in my vision. But he does not speak to me. He, too, is watching. Gaining the lay of the land.

What is it like – I wonder – through his eyes? Is he as unfamiliar with all of this as I am? What does he see that I do not? What do I see that he does not?

I wonder if our visions will fit together, fill in the missing pieces, or if they will overlap and tangle even further.

They spend all morning inside. Leliana comes out and throws two ravens into the air. Even if I could get to the top of the trees, I would not be able to catch them. Where are they going?

The Commander hammers something to the Chantry's door. The shems crowd around to look at it. I cannot see it from here – it does not matter. I cannot read shem writing.

I can barely even read elven.

Hopefully it is not a warrant for me to be put in chains until the next rift appears.

I watch the specter of the wolf pad quietly around the shems. Large – it is hard for my eyes to focus on him in this shape. He is ever shifting, a blurred image like my eyes are full of water. Or like he is a moving ink smudge. We both watch the Chancellor storm off. He is so close to the wolf, that he goes straight through the wolf's nose. I flinch.

If any of these people insult the wolf, I do not know what will happen. Will he force me to act against them? Is he capable of acting on his own? Either way – the blame will fall to me.

 _Hahren_ , the word slips from her lips – unknowing – and the wolf turns an ear towards her. The eye is dark and bleeds black sun. Many eyes. Red ribbon. She worries.

This Inquisition is a hunt. He approves.

 _Hahren_ , she calls.

 _Patience, da'len_ he thinks at her and sinks into the shadows. Nerves. She is nervous and he can feel it. The faint butterfly wind of her magic against his. Fragile and young, a memory of what their people once was. Twisted and distorted, diluted from wine to water. Her blood would have run rich.

Such potential. _Wasted_.

It is your fault. _I know_. _But they do not listen_. They never listen.

_I am alone._

They are looking for me. I can tell from the way they move around, anxious – I make my way back down again. They may need me to seal these rifts of theirs – but they never said they needed me whole.

It is unfair to them, to doubt them so. They have not tried to hurt me – yet – and they did have probable cause to place the Divine's death on me. But I did not stay alive this long by trusting shems just because I have never wronged them before. The only wrong you need, sometimes, is the wrong kind of ears.

I quietly return to walking among them, skirting the edges of their village. Watching.

There is a flurry of talk and action.

I follow Cassandra as she walks among the soldiers, moving ahead of her to watch from the Chantry.

Leliana comes to stand next to me, not saying a word about my absence. It is nerve wracking to be out in the open. The Chantry at my back. Shems in armor before me.

 _Da'len_. It is his voice, my Keeper's voice, my mother's voice that has me standing still. The wolf brushes against the back of my legs, the faintest _thrum_ of his mana in-around-next-to mine.

Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. Never again will we submit.

He watches her, and she is every word and every vow. Shaking apart at the seams – overwhelmed with power and unfamiliarity. But she does not yield.

There may yet be something worth saving in the Dalish after all.

The man from earlier – tall, blonde hair. Stubble. Something strange and non-elven that confuses me. According to shems, facial hair is a sign of maturation. Adulthood. So odd. How do women get marked as adults, then? He nods his head at me, there is a scar on his lip. Where from?

Something is _off_ about him. Something in the energy around him – a song. There is a song inside of him. It is faint, a hum or a funeral song. A dirge, I think they call it. Low and miserable. Is he a mage? But no mage has a song like that. It sounds wrong -

I lean my weight on my left foot, ready to jump back and away if necessary. Out of the corner of my eye I see my first real splash of color among the white and gray and brown of Haven.

A woman dressed in gold and blue comes to stand on my other side. She offers me a brief smile before turning towards Cassandra.

The Chantry and two unknown shems at my back. Plus Leliana – she stood up for me against the Chancellor and defended me against Cassandra in their prison. I remember this. But I also hear the whisper of the wolf.

She is dangerous. I trust him on that. It takes one to know one, after all. She must be something if he singled her out as dangerous – her among the many other shemlen in steel and leather. It makes my shoulders itch, having my back to three dangerous unknowns. And that Creator's be damned _Chantry_.

That stone _cell_ of whispers and hate.

I do not know why Leliana said that they have no leader. The soldiers part for Cassandra like she is a shem queen.

The other three walk into the Chantry. I stay behind to stare at the new banner that hangs over the Chantry door.

The sun of the Chantry, the sword of the templars, the eye that the Seeker bears on her chest.

The Inquisition.

I slowly looks away, and Cassandra catches my eye, nodding towards the dark doors.

I cast a glance around for the wolf. Gone again. Just a whisper inside of me, a touch of encouragement. But no words. No guidance.

Annoyance builds, irritation. He could at least give me some advice. It is, after all, his enemy I am hunting for him.

I slowly walk towards her, dread building in my stomach as we walk into the Chantry once more. 

I do not think I will ever _not_ be uncomfortable, walking into this shem building. It is so austere. It is wrong. Everything I have been raised to turn away from. Stone and hard edges, dull candles, Andraste, the Maker, red and gold and decadence mixed with cold _sacrifice_. Fear.

As we make our way to the small room at the end of the Chantry, I run my thumb over the mark. It makes the song calm. The mana settles. It feels – better.

Her eyes are on me, watching the mark.

"Does it trouble you?"

Yes. Anyone would be troubled to be so obviously marked, bound, to the wolf. But she would not understand – and I do not think I am allowed to tell her.

Even if I did – she would not believe.

"It's stopped spreading." I say. "And it doesn't hurt."

Not right now, at least.

"We take our victories where we can." Cassandra says, offering me a slight upturn of lips. "What's important is that your mark is now stable, as is the Breach. You've given us _time_. It is possible that a second attempt might succeed."

His voice startles me, it is so clear –

"You would need more power."

I feel it, then.

Now that I am – more coherent, now that his magic is settled inside of me. I think I understand the trick. Maybe I can learn to do it, too, in time.

HIs magic expands against me, a thin barrier that settles over my skin and hardens like when he called frost. But this time it serves to draw me inward. Containing me in time.

I turn to face him, he frowns at the doors.

"More power could kill me." I say. And then who would you use to search?

"I am aware of that." He crosses his arms. "But you, alone, do not have enough power to seal this Breach permanently. Temporarily closing it overwhelmed you. You need enough magic of your own, enough mana that belongs to you in order to counteract the foreign mana you are attempting to absorb and utilize."

He paces, brows furrowed.

I snort a laugh, "Forgive me, One Who Hunts Alone, but I will never have enough power to match yours."

"You do not need the same quantity." He replies, dismissing my worries with a wave of his hand, "It is a matter of keying the mana to the right – " He glances at me, sighs. "The particulars are not important right now. Tell her that you need more power. Tell her that you did not have enough energy and the Breach drained you."

"It didn't, though. It _gave_ too much." I protest – it did not take. It _gives_.

"And do you think she would trust you if you told her that you are absorbing the Breach's power rather than disrupting it?"

I glance away.

"Tell her that you need more power." He repeats and I feel time begin to move again.

"I don't know." I say to her, struggling to find words – "I – it didn't work before because. It was just too much. I'm not strong enough to handle it." Too much inside of me. Not supposed to say that, though.

She frowns, "If you had more power, more energy – do you think you would be strong enough to try a second time?"

The wolf stands right behind her.

I try not to look at him.

"I think so. Maybe. I do not know for certain."

"No one expects you to. It makes sense. Power to match power." Cassandra says, inclining her chin. "But power is not easy to come by. Especially not power on the level used to create the Breach in the first place."

"Do you have a plan?"

She nods, throwing open the door and marching in. I follow after her. The other three are assembled before the table, which has been cleared. There are two maps spread over the table, various objects holding the edges of the maps down. Little dark markers signifying – positions? People? Points of interest? – places are spread over the map.

The man with the strange song in him stands right in front of me. The woman in gold holds a strange board with a candle and a quill to my left. Leliana is in her original position by the end of the table on my right. She gives me a brief smile. I am almost reassured.

The wolf leans over the maps, curious, the jawbone dangling down – almost brushing against the pieces. His hands fold behind his back as he hums. Does he recognize the places? How much of it, I wonder, has changed from his time.

"This is Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition's forces." She says.

The man nods at me. His face is polite, he does not look at me with hate or anger. It is a change, I suppose. Shems in armor and titles tend to look at me differently. It does not explain the song. I nod at him.

"Such as they are." His metal gleams in the candle light. It is a kind face, a tired face, I think. I wonder how old he is. He does not seem old. But he feels it. A strange combination.

"This is Lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat."

A string of words I do not understand at all. But I turn to her and nod like I know what that means, anyway. She smiles at me – she has a warm face. Open. I don't know why, but I find that I don't trust it – not really. It seems – like a mask.

" _Andaran ati'shan_." She says and I stare at her.

"You know _elven_?" Where does a shem learn elven? Where does a shem learn how to use elven properly? City elves do not use that greeting, that I know of.

"That is all of it, I'm afraid." She replies, a laugh hides behind her voice.

"And of course you know Sister Leliana."

"My position here involves a degree of – "

"She is our spymaster." Cassandra cuts her off. Fen'Harel laughs, hand rising to his mouth.

"Fascinating. What a handful of titles."

"Yes, tactfully put Cassandra." Leliana says, exasperated. I have never been alone with so many powerful shems before. It's _unnerving_.

She looks between them all, ready to act if necessary. She is wary of the Commander's hand on his sword – curious, there is something strange about him. There is mana inside of him, but he is no mage. And it is not true mana. The ghost of it, perhaps. Lingering. Haunting. Peculiar. He will have her ask about it, later. They must know -

The ambassador is no threat. She poses no danger. The spymaster, though -

Between her and the Commander, there are many gaps in their knowledge to fill.

"Why am I here?" She asks as I look at the maps.

Shemlens everywhere, the quick children have taken over everything that was once ours. I read the names, taste them in my mouth. Ugly names from an ugly language. But they do not have everything.

His fingers trace over the places that are unmarked in ink and metal. The secret spaces – do they still hold their secrets?

"You mentioned that your mark needs more power to close the Breach for good." Cassandra says, turning towards the other three shems.

"If you need power, you would have to approach the rebel mages for help." Leliana says.

"Not necessarily." The Commander says – surprises us both, what does he know? Is this about the song? – "The templars could serve just as well."

She tenses at the word. Templars. What does that mean? He watches her, keeps her in the corner of his vision as he continues to commit the map to memory.

Templars, why does he speak of templars? They are dangerous. I do not want templars near me.

Templars are the worst kind of shem. The most dangerous kind.

Cassandra sighs, "We need _power_ , Commander. Enough magic for the mark – "

"Might destroy us all. Templars could supress the Breach – make it so that the power available is enough, weaken it rather than forcing us to handle what we cannot safely utilize – "

The wolf hums in curiosity.

"Yes, that could work – "

 _No_.

"Pure speculation." Leliana says, as I struggle to figure out how to make the wolf stop looking like he is considering it. No templars. I do not want to meet with templars.

" _I_ was a templar."

Her mana cracks inside of her like lightning. He snaps his own around it, before it can make its way to her skin. Raw and terrified. He forces it quiet.

"Watch yourself." Her face is pale as she looks between the spymaster and the Commander. What _are_ these templars?

"I know what they're capable of."

She swallows, and her jaw clenches. She forces herself to relax. Good.

He slowly releases her mana. It shivers, rattled leaves – shaken in a strong breeze. But it holds still.

"Unfortunately," The ambassador says, "Neither group will even speak to us yet. The Chantry has denounced the Inquisition – and _you_ , specifically." She turns to face me.

Creators – these shems and their _Chantry_ -

"Can't you ignore them?" I can feel the wolf's annoyance with my own. A twitch in mana that feels like rolling your shoulders, shrugging off weight.

"If only that were possible." Leliana sighs.

The ambassador continues.

"Some are calling you – a Dalish mage – the _Herald of Andraste_. That frightens the Chantry."

It frightens _me_.

"The remaining clerics have declared it blasphemy. And _we_ are heretics for harboring  you."

Cassandra's voice drips in annoyance and disdain when she speaks, "Chancellor _Roderick's_ doing, no doubt."

"It limits our options. Approaching the mages or templars for help is currently out of the question."

"The Breach doesn't worry them?" Fen'Harel snorts.

"So if I wasn't here?"

"Let's be honest," The Commander raises a hand, dark humor twisting in his voice, "They would have censured us _anyway_."

"And you being not being here is _not_ an option."

"There is something you can do." Leliana says. "A chantry cleric by the name of Mother Giselle has asked to speak to you. She is not far, and knows those involved far better than I. Her assistance could be invaluable."

The thought of going to find this woman makes me nervous. It could be a trap. And I do not know these parts well.

"We are not in a position to pick and choose." The wolf says, "Agree."

I look from where his fingertips trace the map back to Leliana. He is right. I swallow my apprehension. Besides – I do not think I have the option to say _no_.

"I'll see what she has to say."

"You will find Mother Giselle tending to the wounded in the Hinterlands near Redcliffe."

"Look for other opportunities to expand the Inquisition's influence while you are there." The Commander says, hands resting on the pommel of his sword once more.

"We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley, and you're better suited than anyone to recruit them."

I almost snort. Fen'Harel hums in amusement.

"In the mean time, let's think of other options. I wont leave this all to the Herald."

It is not all to me I think as Cassandra moves to show me the map. I lean over it – and the human scribbles mean nothing to me.

The wolf smiles in the corner of my eye. I shiver.

He has caught the scent of his prey. Now we begin.

 


	5. Haven III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They take your magic." Her voice is small and she shivers, "They make it _quiet_."

-

I can smell bread – round and flat, cooking on heated stones. I watch as mamae and the other women cook the bread, adding crumbled cheese and leaves and drizzle honey. It smells good, warm in my nose. The camp is busy with chatter of the morning. The Keeper is an island of stillness among them -

"Da'len." She says, nodding to me, calling me to her. I go, hand running over a halla's side as I pass the halla pen. The halla blinks sleepy eyes at me, pushing her nose against my elbow as I pass, a soft and damp kiss that makes me feel warm. Safe. I would have liked to be a halla keeper if I were not First.

The Second catches my eye and smiles. I almost wish he were First instead of me.

I will go to the Arlathvhen.

It is part of my duties. But I do not want to. This will be my second Arlathvhen, but this time – this time I will be old enough.

(I am afraid.)

"Da'len." Keeper says as I dip my head in greeting. It is time for my lessons to begin -

 _"_ She is no longer your _hahren_." A shadow whispers in my ear, and I jolt, head jerking up to the Keeper's face. She looks at me, waiting. Behind her I see a shadow. Looming with many eyes.

The shadow looks into me, patient.

"Da'len." The shadow and the Keeper say.

"Hahren." The word slips from my mouth like slick stone and I remember -

I am _not_ the da'len of Lavellan any longer.

The Fade re-arranges itself in front of me, blurring away until it is me and him.

The wolf is a wolf, and he rests on his paws, languid as he reclines on the ground. I stand in the clearing that was once the memory of a memory as it fills with snow and darkness. The trees above him transform from sprawling oaks and maples to stalwart pines. The light is bleak and tinted green.

His eyes are red, but they are not – they are not the menacing color I always imagined them to be. Faded paint, the color of soft and darkened flower petals rather than fresh and shallow blood.

"The Herald of Andraste." He says, amused, practically purring.

"At least they do not call me Shartan." I reply, reaching up to touch my ears.

"Tell me what you have learned." The wolf says, asking me to recite like the da'len I am to him. "Of this Inquisition. Of the people within it."

"You ask if you were not with me whispering in my ear when I asked the questions."

"I was not. Not always. Simply because my consciousness is bound to yours does not mean our memories and thoughts are made clear." The wolf's eyes do not blink at the same time. A small part of me is keeping track. Top left eye, middle right, bottom right, middle left, top left again, top right – the Fade scatters the mind. Dissolves priorities and hesitations and reservations. It makes you forget. It makes you remember. Too much and too little all at once.

I sit in the snow that is not cold and try to understand what has been given-thrust-forced-handed-offered to me.

"Do you not know where to begin?" He asks, tail moving in a soft sweep to curl against his side. "Is this too complicated for you, _da'len_? Should I ask a simpler question?"

She bites her cheek, and she is so afraid but she is so angry, too. Good. She will need that anger. It will keep her alive.

I need her alive. For now.

Why does the magic refuse to come?

It resists. She resists.

_How?_

"Explain how this works." She says, gesturing at the space between us. I look into the wolf's eyes and imagine myself reflected six times over. "I understand that you aren't here. Physically, and that you can only see the world when I am awake. But – what else? Are you constantly at my side? Why can't I see you? Can you – can you control me?"

Good questions.

"When you are awake, I am able to will my consciousness to follow." He answers, "I do not always do so. But I can manifest my consciousness in areas around you. Consider me as if I were a spirit. Spirits are not always visible. And I cannot interact with the physical world. I am bound to your consciousness – as I said. You are a doorway through which I can step through. As long as you are awake, the door is open. I may or may not choose to step through. I may hear things from the open door, but I do not always pay attention." The wolf looks away, into the surroundings of the Fade, "As for the question of control – I can control my mana within you. But I cannot control _you_."

"Your mana has fused to my own."

"Yes. In part. It is not quite fusion. What it is – well. I have theories." I imagine that the man who is the wolf is smiling. "We shall see if they bear fruit. Tell me about Haven and this Inquisition. I would know your own thoughts."

" _Why_?"

Suspicious.

"Because what I see is not what you see. And what you see is not what I see. For example, when you look at me you see a traitor and a beast to be feared. When I look at you, I see an ignorant child who is incapable of true thought and has grown up fumbling in the dark to grasp at things she cannot possibly handle." The wolf's ears flick back, "I should think that is not how you actually see yourself."

Her lips have curled up above her teeth.

His lips have curled up above his teeth.

"No. It isn't." I breathe, digging my nails into my thighs. "I do not know what to make of this Inquisition or what they want from me. I do not know why they let me roam free. They could have me bound in chains and just drag me to rifts to close them. But they let me roam freely and ask my opinions and ask after my welfare. I don't know what to make of it. Do they want a figure head? Do they want to pin blame on me, if this fails by pointing out my involvement and the fact that it was my words that shaped their choices? I do not know. History has not been kind to the elves who have chosen to help humans out of their own messes. Even if it would benefit the greater good." I run my tongue over my teeth. "I do not know if any are worth trusting."

The wolf is quiet, waiting for me to continue. I align their faces and their names in my head, carefully forming their images.

"The ambassador – Josephine." I start, trying to find the right words, "She seems – I do not know if she is an enemy or not. She hides behind her smiles. But I do not feel any malicious intent. She seems content to be. I feel as though I should leave her alone."

"She is a diplomat." The wolf says. "At the moment, inconsequential to either of us. Should this Inquisition grow, and should your role become more prominent, you will need to know more of her. But for now it is acceptable for you to leave her as she is. And of the spymaster?"

"I want to trust her. I need her. She stood up for me. I remember this." Never forget those who are kind to you. "She is – dangerous, though. Watching me. But I do not know what she watches for. A sign from this Andraste or a sign of guilt."

"You are not incorrect. She does watch for both. Most importantly, she watches for weakness. She watches to know you." The wolf's eyes narrow for a moment. "Throw her off whenever possible. Give her little. She is perhaps the most dangerous of them all. And the Commander – what of him?"

She shivers, a soft suck of breath through her teeth.

"You are afraid of him."

"Yes." She hisses out, eyes tightening at the edges.

I curl in on myself.

"Why?"

"Because he is a templar." Because he is a soldier. A man in steel. A shemlen.

Run, run, run, the mana in you sings and screams and it turns high like the halla when they scream when shemlen come with fire and steel glinting in the moonlight, my sin is my ears, my sin, my sins, my sins are not yours to judge, your _Maker will burn just like the rest of you, I am a storm -_

"And what _are_ these templars that you fear?"

"Everyone fears templars."

You are a storm made flesh, what do you have to fear of mortal men when the Fade sings through you, there is a god in your palm, what do you fear when the wolf watches your shadow, who would dare harm you with the world in your hands?

"They take your magic." Her voice is small and she shivers, "They make it _quiet_."

The wolf's hackles rise and his voice is a crackling hiss of frost – " _They what?_ "

"They take your magic." I repeat because I remember-remember-remember, so small, little feet, running, running, I went too far, too far away from the watchful eyes. Too far away from the stone statue that looks outwards, too far from the halla who listen and warn. I went too far and my mana sung too loud and I just wanted to make _frost_ like the Second can – "They take your magic. And they lock you in chains. And put you in stone prisons forever."

If you are an elf and a girl they do worse.

I do not say that.

The wolf knows-knows- _no_ -

His teeth are white in the shadows, and his image makes my eyes hurt. I can't look at him directly. He's shifting – writhing shadow that makes him look flat and deep and too much, bursting, swallowing, swirling, swooping -

"Do you think that this is why they let you go free?" I do not dare to look up. I nod. "Do you feel as though this Commander will do that to you?"

"He might. I do not know."

He looked warm. And kind. And tired.

He did not look like a templar.

He just looked like a man.

I do not like it.

"You are afraid that he will."

"Yes."

"What else makes you afraid?"

That I will not be fast enough. That they will catch me when I run and bind my arms and legs like I am prey in the woods to be spitted over a fire. I am afraid that I will die here in the frost alone with no tree to blossom and shade my grave. I am afraid that I will die here blamed for crimes that are not mine. I am afraid that I will be given guilt that is not mine and the shems will use that to run my people into the ground.

We cannot survive another March.

We have lost so much.

I close my eyes. We were once great. We were once a proud people. Now we are scattered like so many ashes in the wind.

I would have gone to the Arlathvhen.

I would have gathered those ashes into myself and borne them anew. And I would have died a little in the process.

She bites her lip and closes her eyes, curled up small like she is hiding. The Fade grays around her, fills with her fear and her despair and her longing. Her hope and her anger.

There is a storm locked in her. If there is one thing they have not lost, it is their passions. They feel things so deeply.

"Look at me, _da'len_."

She startles, small and wide eyed as she looks into me. Afraid.

When did he get so close? I stare, frozen. I can see my own reflection in his many eyes as he looks down upon me. The wolf looms over me, muzzle inches away from my face.

"You have nothing to fear." The wolf says, words curling around me as the shadows rise. The darkness swallows my vision until all I can see is myself, the wolf, and his many, many unblinking eyes. Red like dying embers, soft, sputtering, smoking – _waiting_. "You are afraid because you think they have cornered you. That you have been penned in, herded like a hare or a quail. You are wrong. Your next lesson is this. I give you _vir'revas_. The path of freedom. Do you accept?"

I push my will against hers and feel her mana shiver, a ripple of a wave. In time it could be something powerful. She will need the tools to make it so.

I will give them to her.

She walks the world in my name for my cause.

I can give her this.

The wolf is a liar and a deceiver. But I do not think that he would trick me in this. The wolf may have betrayed the People in times past, but it was not to shemlen he sold us to. Not directly.

He needs me.

For now I cannot see his larger game. If there is one.

I accept.

Good.

"This is a skill I can only tell you the theory of in the Fade." The wolf says, stepping back and turning to walk into the snow-covered land scape. I slowly push to my feet to follow. In the Fade the snow does not feel cold. There is only resistance as my feet sink into it. A faint wash of mana that licks at my own mana like water. "You will have to practice it in the waking world. It will take time for you to perfect it. As you are it will only aide you in short bursts. But it will be enough. Tell me of the others. The Seeker they call Cassandra. What did you learn from her?"

I watch her approach the woman who bears an eye on her chest. She is a cautious da'len, wary. But the thirst for more burns in her. A lifetime in isolation from the world, she is practically drowning in it, now. Floundering. Young in so many ways for all that she is, in the eyes of her _Dalish_ , an adult.

The woman sets me off, she is – strong. Demanding. Harsh. Headstrong. But honest in a way that no one else has been thus far.

"I trust her." I answer, "She is – quick to judge and brash. But she is honest and straightforward. I know what she wants. She is simple."

"Her faith is dangerous."

"Faith is always dangerous." The words twist in my mouth and spill out before I can help it, "The Gods and Forgotten Ones had faith in _you_."

The wolf pauses, shoulders rippling before he continues.

"The da'len grows a tongue to cut with." He says.

"The hahren allows it." I reply, emboldened when he does not turn on me. The Fade is truly a place where – where fires burn brighter. I do not know if I am myself here, or if I am what I could be, or perhaps I am someone else altogether,

"Trust her, if you will." The wolf says, "But be ready to break it. Do not bind yourself to it. She is still your watcher, the one who holds the blade to your neck. She watches you just as much as the spymaster does. She is just more obvious about it. The dwarf?"

"I know of him from his books." I tell him, smile pulling up at my mouth as I think of the worn copies we have in the clan. "We have few books, but his were among them. That is what we used to learn to read the common."

The wolf's ears perk. "What are his tales?"

"An epic based on the events in Kirkwall, _The Tales of the Champion_. It is his best. A series of fictions about Kirkwall and crimes, _Hard in Hightown_. Those are the only ones I am familiar with. The hahrens have read _The Tales of the Champion_ out loud to us many times. We have only heard one or two pieces of _hard in Hightown_. He is not affiliated with these people, this Inquisition. He knows something of the red lyrium. He was the one to discover it."

The wolf turns, walking in a slow circuit around me. There are a few wisps in the area, they come close to me. I warily reach out to touch them. They flicker – their mana flickers against mine like little heartbeats. They chime and whisper like brooks and rustles of leaves. I can hear their soft chatter, like a babe's babbles. One of the wisps darts around me to the wolf, rushing between his legs in circles. I watch as it is joined by its companions.

One of the wisps is content to be cupped in my hands. Small and tender-soft. Like holding steam.

The wolf hums, a low sound of thought.

"You will tell me more of this lyrium, later." He says, "The Fade step, the _vir'revas_ , is a technique used to escape and disable, or at least, disorient opponents. It is in part based on the theory of manipulating ice. In order to master the Fade step you will need to master how to draw ice. For this you do not need to form a quantity of it, but call on the potential. Much like you can see and feel the potential of lightning, you can do so with ice. There is water in the atmosphere, as such there is potential for there to be frost. I cannot show you in the Fade. In order to perform the Fade step, you must call ice."

The wolf sits on his haunches, watching the wisps that circle him, darting in and chasing each other like lightning bugs.

"How? Is it actually stepping _into_ the Fade?" I frown.

The wolf shakes his head.

"No. The name is not derived from the Fade. It is derived from the act of _fading_ from view." The wolf pauses, "You fade from view and you fade from the physical world." When I open my mouth he turns to focus his eyes on me. "It is a displacement of matter, much like when you draw ice from the air you are removing it."

I recall the lesson from before, when I pulled the mana from the water, and it was immediately replaced by a new rush.

"Focus on your own mana as if you were going to cast a spell for frost." He continues, "Hold, but rather than connect and form, release and push outward. At the same time, prepare step in whichever direction you wish to move to. Then together, step and release. Your mana will propel you forward. In time this will also create the effect of momentarily chilling whatever you pass through. But that will only come with time and practice. Again, you cannot do it here. It is a very much – physically based spell. Dreams are too easily manipulated for you to learn it here. Fire, for tonight, instead."

I bite my cheek and I can feel his amusement.

Fire is against her nature. It has frustrated her before. It eludes her. Odd, as many consider fire to be the simplest of the baser elements to master. But she, herself, is proving to be odd. It suits her.

I can sense her distaste, almost feel it. No – I do feel it. A shrink and a shudder of annoyance, as if she is trying to ignore an itch.

"You react as if I am asking the world from you, da'len." He teases.

"The lesson." I say, getting ready to make a fool of myself in front of the wolf.

"It is not as hard as you think it is." He says, beckoning me forward with a paw. "Come."

I bite my cheek and go towards him. I do not – I do not like being near him. It is strange. Especially in this form. It is easier to remember that he is dangerous like this. That he is a god. My skin feels tight.

I remember why I should fear him, when he looks at me with his many eyes, down at me over his muzzle.

"Call a flame." He says. "As much as you can sustain over a period of time."

I blink – "You aren't going to tell me how?"

"I wish to see what you are capable of managing on your own." Left middle. Bottom and middle right at once.

The wisps gather around us, and I bend my head and focus inward. I call flame to my hands, a small ball of it. As big as I dare. My ears burn in shame at how small it is. It flickers, unsteady.

I am used to this.

I focus on keeping the small light going.

"That's all?" The wolf sounds _surprised_.

At the very least I am comfortable in this sort of shame. Everyone in my clan new of this failure of mine. Everyone. I am used to it. It is part of me.

I've learned to laugh at it.

"Yes. That's it." I reply, and already it flickers, begins to sputter and gutter away. It is just – it is so hard. I've tried so many times. My Keeper just gave up.

I can always light a fire with wood and stone and sparks. Lightning, if I tried hard enough to control it. I could work my around this flaw. I could adapt around the hole in me, hide it.

The fire flickers, and my mana strains to feed it. To keep it round and bright and warm. It is a losing battle, I know. But he said to keep it going as long as I could. And I will. Not that it will be very _long_. I can at least try, though.

Never dishonor your teachers by giving less than everything you have, even if you know you will fail.

I can see my mana, flickering out, unraveling. Stray strands of it flick outwards, seeking mana around us to feed it. Lightning, I can almost taste the static that builds in the air.

"No." The wolf says. "Just fire."

"I know." I reply, "I can't help it. It just _does_ that."

"You can help it." The wolf replies, "You make excuses."

"They _aren't_ excuses." Does he not think that I've _tried_ to stop before?

Her face flushes red and her hands clench around her small, wavering flame. Determined and hurt and resigned.

The heat swells against my fingers, but it is only hot air. The flame is fading. An irregular heartbeat.

"How did your Keeper teach you to fan your flame?"

"By getting angry." I reply. But it doesn't work. It never works.

_Just get angry, da'len. Creators -_

I _do_ get angry. I get frustrated and annoyed and ashamed. I can feel it prick at my skin. The frustration. It makes my fingers want to curl into fists. It makes my skin feel like it is shrinking, turning into a rock-hard shell that threatens to squeeze me into nothingness. It feels like my skin is alive and shattering at once. It makes my ears ring. A high pitched sound just on the edge of hearing that makes me want to grind my teeth. My vision blurs around the edges as I focus on the center of the flame. Daring it to keep going because at this point I already _know_.

I take it, I take that anger and try to do like what she said. Channel it into the flame.

But the flame sputters more, erratic as it tries to turn into lightning to draw more mana to feed it. As if my anger was not enough. As if my anger was less than enough.

And that just makes me _angrier_ – and I feel it.

He must see-feel it, too.

We both watch as my mana feeds into the irregular heart-beat of a fire, we watch it deform. Collapsing in on itself, turning white and weak before bursting outwards. Faint trails of magic and heat pushing past my fingers and leaving empty, cooling air.

She breathes out a hiss through her teeth. But her shoulders throw back and her gaze fixes somewhere to the left of the wolf. Her lips curl, ugly and bitter.

"I am not good with fire." She says.

The wolf is quiet.

"For most, being angry and using it to feed the fire is quite logical." He says, utterly calm. As if he did not just watch her pathetic attempt at sustaining a spark. "But it does not work for all. Your anger does not suit fire, da'len. As you saw, your mana naturally seeks out lightning. And the reason you could not call frost was not because you were incapable, simply that you did not understand it the same way others did."

The wolf blinks at me, slowly, languid. Serene.

"Flame is a magic that is fed." He continues, "Unlike lightning – which needs to be led, and ice and water– which need to be given form, fire is an element which needs to be sustained. The type of fire you wish to conjure is dependent on how you shape your mana. Your keeper taught you to shape it with your anger. For most that would be to push, to condense and lash out. But your nature is lightning. Focusing on one point, finding the quickest path to it. Powerful, but ultimately short lived."

The wolf turns his head and I follow his gaze to the wisps.

"Many wisps are fire in nature." He says. "Hold out your hand."

She holds out her hand, wary as she looks between the wolf and the wisps. The wolf sends out a tendril of mana, coaxing the curious spirits closer. They are small – in their manifested forms. Little globes of light and whispers. They cluster close, and he gently nudges one into her hand.

"Does that feel like anger, to you?"

No.

Her face softens as she cradles the wisp. So gentle. Awed.

"It feels soft." She replies. "Like a heartbeat. Like – like steam." She closes her eyes.

"What does it make you think of?"

"Soup. Tea. Warmth." She says, bending her head towards the wisp. It pulses in her hands, a quiet and curious whisper as it brushes against her face. Soft ribbons and trails of magic that playfully trace her features. "Like warm mist or fog. Sunlight through leaves."

A smile blooms over her face.

Warm. Kind. Radiant.

A small sun.

"Think on that, da'len." The wolf says, "And we will continue next time. Rest, and dream, for now. You set out soon to meet this Chantry Mother, soon. You will practice what I have taught you tomorrow, when you wake."

"Yes, hahren." She says, eyes still closed as the wisp nuzzles against her. The others join -

They feel like – like dandelion fluff. So gentle. It is hard to imagine that when they enter the real world they can turn violent. That they can hurt.

She's destroyed these creatures. Snuffed out their innocent heartbeats.

The wisps' chatter is nonsense to her – is it even a language? – but makes her feel calm. Even with the wolf practically looming over her.

It feels like they're swallowing her. Like being buffeted on all sides by steam, gentle steam.

Flutters of eyelashes and the brush of grass. Gentle breezes.

Halla kisses.

I watch her as the wisps embrace her. Curious and delighted to have someone new, someone who does not drive them away, to play with. She holds them close, content and happy. Pleased. She is just as curious as they are.

I watch her for a long time. And I try to imagine her as she should be. Without the marks of a slave – with the immortality she should have. The magic that should flow through her. I imagine her as she could have been, clad in the fade-touched cloth that remembers and holds and expels.

Her voice, as it curls around the soft poetry of the lost languages, remembered only in phrases and jagged edges to the children of today.

The wolf watches her until he cannot, because there are too many ghosts that lie in between her bones and the layers of her skin, too many truths laid bare over her skin and tucked into her eyes.

He gives her this.

I do not know when I open my eyes again. But when I do the wolf is gone.

And the wisps slide through my fingers like steam.

I am waking.

(She stirs. She will wake.)


	6. The Hinterlands: The Crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distantly I feel sorry that they died. There were probably servants there – shem and elven alike – who were only doing what they must to survive. There were children and families, innocents, there as well. Perhaps even people who truly did want peace. Perhaps there were even people who wanted reform. And I am sorry that those are gone with the ones who would call for more blood, more war, more steel.
> 
> But not as sorry as I am for those who will suffer the consequences, living.

We meet a small group of Inquisition soldiers on a cliff overlooking the Crossroads, where Mother Giselle and the rest of the refugees are supposed to be. Trapped between the Mage Rebellion towards the North and East – near Redcliffe village – and the Templars who have taken over the western area.

A dwarf named Harding greets us, telling us of the problems the area faces and what to be on the look out for. I smile, holding back a snort of laughter when Varric attempts to make a joke about her _Harding in Hightown_.

I push most thoughts out of my mind as I breathe in deep. Forests, good soil, grass, sunlight that isn’t green and reflecting off of snow as far as the eye can see -

I could run. I could run and they would not catch me. I know this. They could catch me at Haven, the could catch me in the Frostbacks. But here? In the grass and trees and clear streams and mountains? I could run. I could run all the way back to the Free Marches and they would never find me.

The earth is warm beneath my bare feet – blessedly bare – and I lift my face to the warm sunlight. I feel _better_ here. I feel _grounded_.

Tents, open air – not a single stone prison in sight. No walls. No fences. No roofs. Just the sky, the trees, and the mountains and hills. The rolling and undulating waves of green-gold – marred as they are by the shem’s fighting. But I am used to fire and I am used to ruin.

This is more home than I have ever felt in a long time.

Warm. Green. Like dreams. The Fade brought real. My heart’s desire? Dream, dream, dream of this, all night long.

I could _run_.

Her feet push into the ground, and he watches the skin flex, the way her muscles bunch as she resists the urge to disappear. To leave this all behind. It is a miracle she has not before. The Dalish are insular children, and this brand of broad-minded selflessness is not what he was expecting. He watches her longing – clear and painful, spreading over her marked face as she looks out into the undulating gold-green hills of the Hinterlands. The fact that she has not, actually, fled – as ever instinct and desire within her, so strong he can imagine the taste of it, screams at her to leave this Inquisition behind – does her great credit.

He has admitted that he has no true power to control her. Perhaps it is her fear of the stories, the shadow his name has grown to cast, that holds her rooted? Betrayer, Bringer of Nightmares – his very name has come to mean _traitor_. He wonders what nightmare keeps her here. The fear that he will hunt her, or that he will bring ruin to whoever she flees to?

Foolish girl, strange girl, young but on the cusp of change. Change, bitter and foul, change has not sat well, change was not what it should have been, but she is going to change. He will change her, whether either of them like it or not.

Her heart beats, beats, beats, and his sleeps.

Changes.

“Mother Giselle waits for us. The longer we tarry the more danger she, and the other refugees, can possibly be in.” Cassandra says, rolling up a map and sliding it into a leather tube that she tucks into the small pack at her hip. “Both the Templars and mages have been drawing closer and closer to the refugee camps.”

This will be the first time that I truly test what the wolf has taught me. I have practiced – quietly, in Haven, away from prying eyes. And I have practiced on the way here. I have practiced in my dreams, as well. But the true test is battle and I have been found wanting.

Until I master the things he has taught me, the wolf refuses to teach me more.

 _Patience, da’len_ , the wolf whispers, a true wolf that lounges across the snow as I practice catching wisps in barriers. The wisps escape through the holes faster than I can seal them, darting around and into my face like kisses and little nudges and tickling breaths that aren’t. Patient and eager, playing and playful. _Prove you know the basics first, then we shall see where that leads._

We slowly make our way down the steep slope of the hill the Inquisition camp has based itself on. There is an abandoned house on the hill adjacent. I am curious about it – I am curious about many things – but Mother Giselle comes first. Then afterwards – establishing further camps for the Inquisition in the region.

By the time we make it to the base of the hill, the sounds of fighting are clear from around the corner – hidden from view by the shape of the rocks. I suck my teeth. A blind corner, can’t see anything until it’s too late. Should’ve climbed one of the hills to watch, first.

“Templars – and mages.” Cassandra says. I remember her telling me that she could feel lyrium in a person’s blood. Perhaps that is how she knows? Or common sense. Who else would be fighting? It could be bandits. Either way – what difference is one group of shems killing another group of shems to me versus a different group of shems killing another group of shems?

None.

It is all just blood.

It is terrible and it is natural and it is going to drown us all one day. Shem blood.

I grip my staff, and I can feel static building. I blink the storm out of my eyes – _not yet_ – and cautiously round the corner. Cassandra runs ahead of me – the green of the Inquisition attempting to fight back men in flashing steel.

“Inquisition.” The wolf says, though time does not slow – the test truly begins, then - “A three way fight. Watch yourself. Focus your barriers where you cannot see. Remember that there is water in the air and you can draw it as you draw lightning. And fire is not always rage. _Go_.”

 _Yes, hahren_ , I think, moving forward and casting my first barrier around Varric. Cassandra will be fine and I do not plan on drawing close enough, or being far away enough from her to get injured. If not – I could always practice the Fade step. Varric draws more attention than I do, anyway.  He’s always yelling, without the steel Cassandra has to back it up.

If I were him, I would not yell.

She slips into battle, and it is easier for her this time. Less hesitation in her movements, more calculation. Good, she holds well thus far. But her enemy is occupied and far away. And she calls upon her familiar element – lightning. Her mettle will not truly be tested by familiarity. Still, there are more enemies and a three person squad – one shield warrior, and two long distance fighters – is not nearly balanced enough to hold back an assault on multiple fronts.

How will she handle this?

He is curious. Aside from casting barriers and nudging her spell work there is nothing he can truly do to help her. He has already given her the tools, the knowledge. How she chooses to use it – squander it – is up to her. He takes a moment to hope she is not nearly as foolish as the others who he has given his knowledge to. Considering that he has more invested in her than he has had in – anyone, for such a long time – he almost wishes he _could_ just bend her to his will.

It is a thought that is both revolting and appealing. It would solve many problems.

It is the _essential_ problem. The one that has brought – the one that has brought the people to their knees. Hobbled and quickened and blind.

Her staff work is good – minimal with few embellishments. One of the few things that the Dalish teach well. Perhaps just her clan. It is practical magic, as practical as staff work can be.

_Your fault – your fault – your fault -_

_Ir abelas, dar’him tel’uth._

Nothing is forever.

Lavellan watches with the eyes of a hunter, a fox or serpent. Used to watching from the shadows, waiting to pounce, strike, quick and clean. Lightning snaps out, her fingers sparking with it. Her eyes trace the path and it sings in the air, striking and illuminating the steel-clad templars. But her strikes are quick, unused to fighting larger creatures. As beautiful as they are, they do little but stun. Her magic has yet to truly adapt to war.

In time, with practice it will. It remains to be seen if she will _need_ that practice – get to that point -

And she does not have enough of it. He has given her as much as he safely can in the waking world, and her own mana is slow to regenerate.

Her lightning will not be enough.

What will you do now, _da’asha_?

I know what I must do, _hahren_.

I can feel him watching me, though I do not see him – no matter which way I turn. He is watching. The wolf always watches, looking for weakness. It is just that this time, the wolf watches to – hopefully – step in and correct, rather than take advantage. The wolf is on my side – or I am part of the wolf’s game, for now. I do not know which is more accurate.

I do not think that I _have_ a side, in this.

A flash of steel in the light – there is no time to think on the wolf’s loyalties or I will be dead before any plots could even come to fruition – and I call the frost out of the air. I am getting better at it. The movement feels right, and I catch the water with my hand, throwing my mana out towards the templar -

_Never again, no, no, I will not be silenced, no, let it sing, let it sing -_

The spell glows before me and I hear the crack-screech of ice on metal, rapidly forming and solidifying.

I have lost and I have gained. I am already becoming more than I once, ever was. Will be.

Full. I am -

She smiles, vicious and sharp as she calls what has previously escaped her grasp to prevent that which makes her fear from coming closer. Her smile curves and flashes – fast before it is wiped off her face – like her favored lightning. He watches. It is a silent predator’s smile. She grows. It grows.

Does he feed it?

She is dangerous.

He _wants that_.

She would have been risen, raised, rising in Arlathan – he wonders. He wonders. Andruil? Elgar’nan? Mythal – even. _Enaste_.

Perhaps himself. Perhaps, in another life – another time -

 _Now_.

She moves fast over the ground, now that there is no snow to impede her. She moves fast, eyes scanning, moving away and forward and over rocks and behind crumbled walls. Quick and deft, she knows how to exploit blind spots, how to move to find cover behind people and objects. Clever, clever _da’asha_.

Her teeth bare, victorious whenever she calls ice. Her barriers grow more fluid, better – taking more hits before they disappear, but she has quite a way to go before they are stable, by any means. But it is an improvement. A fast improvement. Leaps and bounds.

Very good. Perhaps he was fortunate, after all.

I – she, he, we – watch, listen as the Seeker and dwarf try to convince both templars and mages that we mean no harm even as they fire bolts and raise their swords. Actions scream, words whisper. Both have their uses.

Shems do not listen. Blood drives them crazy. Frenzied. They are drunk on it. Drowning in it.

We kill them all.

It strikes me as strange that neither the Seeker nor the dwarf are hesitant about looting the bodies. Why would they be? I wonder. The Right Hand of the Divine, picking the pockets of cooling corpses. The infamous author of _The Tales of the Champion_ so far away from the looming, smoking crater of Kirkwall. Him, I can almost understand – if the stories about Kirkwall before its fall, and the stories he wrote are true. His coat pockets are lined with the coin of many dead. But the _Seeker_? That seems odd.

I am long used to it. I have taken from the pockets of dead and dying shem. I have taken from dead and dying elves. I close their eyes when I can. They look into me and sometimes their faces ask _why_. There is no answer for _why_ , only that it has happened. I hope they move on. Do not dwell.

I hope their Maker – or Andraste? – gives them peace away from the blood.

I doubt he – she – will, though.

The gold pieces roll in my palm as I rub the metal between my fingers, warming. In these few handfuls of coin, there is more wealth than my clan will see in months. I wonder if I can send it to my clan. Apology, compromise – a way to lessen the sting, the blow -

No. Do not think on it. Do not dwell on what has passed.

Her lips twist downwards as she pockets the gold. Her thoughts drift elsewhere. He turns to watch as the remaining Inquisition forces move to secure the perimeter. Quick, swarming likes ants. Soldiers. Perhaps this is how the shemlen grew to take over. Scavenging and claiming battlefields of the people quicker than they could blink. Running them, swallowing them, wearing them away like the wind -

_A slow -_

I turn and catch a glimpse of the wolf – a man, again – laughing, hand over his mouth as he shakes his head. A soft chuckle. Turned away from me. Broad shoulders shifting with his amusement.

Where is the humor?

“Mother Giselle will speak with you alone.” Cassandra tells me, nodding towards a house settled up on higher ground where the wounded are being carried to. “I am not acquainted with her, so I cannot tell you what to expect. I will assist the soldiers. You will be safe.”

I nod, slowly, and turn to Varric who waves me on, Bianca holstered as he turns to help move the dead. I can smell the smoke of pyres. I wonder how long it takes for a body to burn. I have never stayed to find out.

People move around me, so fast, fallen into routes and patterns. They have earned their name, I think, these quick children. They remind me of insects. Ants. They have paths and they know them so well. Routines, roles, _places_ to _be_. Places to _go_.

Kill one and a dozen more take its place. They all _know_. And in numbers they can bring down the mightiest of corpses and build the largest of invisible colonies that choke the earth you do not see.

I know I am – was – the First of my clan. I know that my clan is called _Lavellan_. I know that I am a woman of the People. But my – our – path is not set and we are free to wander and spend our lives as we wish so long as we survive and preserve. There is no true goal aside from that. Suvival and preservation. It is a life that drags on over my eyes. It is a contented life.

(Dozens of us, choking, slowly, smothered, quietly, yearning, loudly, starving, softly. Dozens of us chained, gently. _For Arlathan, Keeper whispers, for us. For those who died before you. For the clan. Yes, Keeper, yes, I will, I will. This is the only thing you have, da’len. It is the only thing we have. I know, Keeper, I know._ I will gather the ashes and stoke the flame I am Sylaise, I am Mythal, I am June. There is a forge in my blood, it is all I am and it is all I ever will be. As my mother was before me, as her sisters and her mother before her – as we will always be. Cupped palms open, lips parting, swallow the ash. Love the ashes.)

Preservation.

I suck in a deep breath. There will be nothing to preserve, whether I want to or not, if the Breach is not sealed and the wolf is not appeased.

The garb of the Chantry has always seemed odd. White and red with the strange head pieces. To what purpose? It does not defend from attack – it seems to mark a large target. It is nonsensical. Much like most of the Chant. Their Maker seems so _petty_.

I watch as she speaks in low tones to a soldier, pale with pain and blood loss. His leg is badly wounded, an arrow stuck in deep. I hope that it is a wooden arrow.

The metal poison is a terrifying way to go.

I have seen many go that way.

The wolf is a black and ominous shadow, sitting at an empty crossroads – a space where no shem walks, and none of the invisible paths that draw the shems along on their busy, busy schedules seems to take them. The world moves around him, and I watch him watch me with his unblinking eyes. Untouched by the world, _untouching_.

Disconnected and one.

I am he is me is you and me and we are one and none and divided we stand together me, us, you, he, she, male, female, neither, wolf, woman, _other_ , here, real -

“Mother Giselle.” My eyes drop back to her.

“I am.”

And she rises to speak to me in that same soft voice that all the Chantry mothers and sisters have in that whispering, susurrus of an accent that hisses out of every Orlesian mouth. I trust it from her, though. I cannot taste the malice or prejudice in her voice. I cannot hear it in her gaze. I cannot feel it in her eye-blinks.

“And you must be the one they are calling the Herald of Andraste.” Her hands fold behind her back.

“You asked for me.” I am neither a Herald or Andrastian. I am simply myself. I am only myself.

I am the one who holds the shadow of the wolf who hunts alone. I am Ellana of clan Lavellan. I am alone. The wolf chases others away. But he is not me and I am not yet him. Apart and together. Seeing, hearing, listening -

Whispers.

The woman dips her head and leads me away from the sick and dying and dead. I glance out of the corner of my eye, and the wolf remains. He does not follow. The red of his eyes holds no pupil. I do not know where his gaze lands.

Everything. Nothing. Me. Somewhere beyond that mortals can never hope to understand.

“I know of the Chantry’s denouncement, and am familiar with those behind it. I won’t lie to you, some of them are grandstanding. Hoping to increase their chances of becoming the new Divine.” She pauses, turns to face me fully, “So many good people taken away from us.”

I do not know why she tells me this. What the purpose is. I cannot find what she wants in her eyes or her words. I do not know what she wants from me, what she gains from speaking to me.

I watch her as she looks over the Crossroads, and pick my words carefully.

“What happened was horrible.” I tell her. And it was. So many shem dead. The leaders, the ones with power – gone. Now the rest clamor for a taste, snatching at the cooling corpses like vultures. It is destabilizing. Frightening. It means danger for everyone else. It means _instability_.

Instability means anger. Fear. Stress. All of this without the proper controls. And _that_ means hunting. That means blaming the outside. That means my people will pay for this whether it makes sense or not.

Shem wars, even against each other, destroy us little by little. Clans can’t travel without fear of bandits and deserters, or even shem armies attacking them for supplies and slaves. And _fun_. Land previously considered safe becomes dangerous. Clans get trapped in dead zones, between armies and ravaged cities. Rocks and hard, burning places. Game and resources get taken by the shems – not even for consumption. Sometimes shems just burn fields and forests and drive game out of areas so _the other shems won’t have it_.

Elves in alienages die by the hundreds – even we, in the Free Marches, heard of the burning of Halamshiral’s largest alienage. _Hundreds upon hundreds_ of us. Burned for a shem Queen’s security. For _her_. Burning for her.

We are always burning. Like dry and dying trees for kindling.

It is a frightening nightmare to the shems.

It is reality for _us_.

Distantly I feel sorry that they died. There were probably servants there – shem and elven alike – who were only doing what they must to survive. There were children and families, innocents, there as well. Perhaps even people who truly did want peace. Perhaps there were even people who wanted reform. And I am sorry that those are gone with the ones who would call for more blood, more war, more steel.

But not as sorry as I am for those who will suffer the consequences, living.

“Fear makes us desperate.” Mother Giselle says as I press my lips together, “But hopefully, not beyond reason.”

I hold in my snort of disbelief.

“Go to them. Convince the remaining clerics you are no demon to be feared. They have heard only frightful tales of you.” The Dalish apostate, the Dalish savage, the wildling. They always tell tales. They are always frightful. Except for when they are bouncing tits and milk skin and _rabbit, rabbit, rabbit_. Those are the only two tales they tell of the Dalish women. Wildling and whore. I hold my tongue. Shems never like it when you tell. “Give them something _else_ to believe.”

I cannot make believers out of the unwilling. My people have been trying to make shems believe that we are _people_ for centuries.

“You want me to _appeal_ to them?” I raise my eyebrow at her and lean my weight on my heel. What _good_ has a Dalish’s word ever meant to a _shem’s_? Even if they ignored me being a Dalish, even if they ignored me being one of their _apostates_ , they still think I killed the Divine.

Fen’Harel hides in my shadow.

“If I thought you were incapable, I wouldn’t suggest it.” She says, slight sting to her words as I tuck my chin down.

“ _Will_ they even listen?”

“Let me put it this way,” She says, “You needn’t convince them. Just get some of them to _doubt_. Their power is their unified voice. Take that from them, and you will receive the time you need.”

Divide and conquer. Isn’t that what the shems have been doing to us for years? I almost laugh.

There is a smile in her eyes. I watch it spread.

It mirrors my own, and she is a sharp girl. Strange girl. How will she change from this, how will this change her, will I be able to control _this_ change?

“It’s good of you, to do this.” She – I – say.

“I do not now if the Maker sent you to help us, or if you have been touched by fate. But I _hope._ Hope is what we need now. The people will listen to your rallying call, as they will listen to no other. You could lead the Inquisition into a force that will deliver us. Or destroy us.” Her dark eyes dig into mine. She reminds me of some of the older Keepers, from the other clans. The ones from Ferelden that have seen the Blight. The ones that lived near shem cities with rebelling circles.

She is right. If I chose to use this – to claim the title of Herald of Andraste as my own, I would have a good portion of Thedas eating out of my hands. For the first time since Arlathan, an elf would hold power over the masses. If I chose to claim Andraste, if I chose to claim being the Herald, I would hold more power in my hands than any shem has had in centuries. It is a heavy power. I could use it to bring the shems together, or I could use it to do what the shems have been doing to my people for years. I could break their Chantry. I could break _Thedas_ with that.

It is a terrifying thought.

There are many clans that wish retribution on the shems. Every shem. Many elves who wish shem blood would run in the gutters of their cities until they drowned in street-ways full of it. They wish retribution and they wish that the shems would cut each other up so we don’t have to.

I am not one of those elves.

Blood begets blood. What would grow from land soaked in that poison?

He wonders if she is aware of how she could utilize this power. The Dalish do not have politics, not as the People once did, or the humans and dwarves do. Oh, there _is_ structure and hierarchy. But it is leveled and decentralized. Weak and fragmented.

 _Da’asha_ , he wonders and wishes he could see into her mind, _you could tip the scales. You hold their heart_.

It is a weak hold, threatening to slip from her fingertips. She holds onto it with the edges of her nails, unconvinced and uncertain if she should let go or hold on.

Hold on, he thinks at her. Hold on to this and turn it into a leash. It will protect you. It will become your shield.

It will become your mask.

Six eyes close together and open a man, the bones are heavy and the mantle is hot.

Bound to serve a higher power. A greater cause. The most noble and dangerous good.

How will you answer?

“I will go to Haven,” Mother Giselle says, “And I will give Sister Leliana the names of those in the Chantry who would be amiable to a rendezvous. It is not much, but I will do whatever I can.” She turns and walks away, a gentle bow to her head.

I watch her, and the heavy question lies unspoken.

_Will you?_

Will I?

Do I dare?

I do not know to which purpose. My own? The wolf’s – which is partially aligned with mine, for now? The Inquisition’s? The shemlen’s? My people’s?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

I don’t know whose purpose I am serving, serves mine – it is all tangled together. What I want, what _he_ wants, what I need, what the _world_ needs, what the world _wants_ , the shems, the Chantry, this _Inquisition,_ what my people _demand_ , what they need, what they will accept – it’s all knotted up. Spilling over and fighting each other like paints and blood and poultices and poisons and I am blind to the difference except that I know that if I do not choose my poison, it will kill me.

It is impossible to hold them all.

I do not want to burn for the shems.

But -

I did not want to hold the ashes of my people.

(An insidious thought – _are they your people_?)

She shudders, slender shoulders, slender frame – the tree that bends in the wind and threatens to snap. Still growing.

The wolf slowly edges into my vision.

“She offers us names.” I whisper through closed lips. I still don’t quite understand the trick to drawing myself inward, in manipulating the Fade-dreams-time. It is a mix of something like casting for ice and casting a barrier, so far as I can tell. The wolf does it for me, and I can feel his mana sticking to my skin. And then _pushing_. Like he is pushing me into a box that is not a box. The space where _I_ once was is not filled, and the world stills around us.

I no longer take up space, I am in the same plane as he is. But I am not. My body moves, my mind races. My body is frozen. My mind is free.

“Information.” The wolf muses, “An unexpected ally. What did she want in return?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t know what _you_ want. Not truly.

I know that he teaches me magic so I can survive to get his answers. I know that I am foolish enough to take it because this is knowledge. This is what my people have been starving for for generations. This is what has been bled and bred out of us by time and shems.

I know that I follow this Inquisition because they want me to close the Breach and seal the rifts. I also know that these rifts will lead to what the wolf wants.

I do _not_ know why they give me such a long leash. I do not know what the shape or name is of the prey that has escaped the wolf’s nose. I do not know what will happen afterwards.

I do _not_ know what I will do. I do not know what he will do. I do not know what the Inquisition will do.

I do _not_ know the price for any of this, other than it _must_ be there.

"What were you looking at?” I ask.

“The humans are curious. Vastly different and still the same as I recall.” Fen’Harel replies. “Busy. Rushed. Easily distracted.”

His red eyes blink, slowly, two by two by two.

“Speak to the villagers, see what you can learn of the area.” He says, “And the situation. Perhaps we will find tracks.”

Perhaps. I dip my head.

I fill space again, and the wolf is gone. I stand alone and shems move around me, parting like I am a stone in a river.

Untouched. _Untouching_.

She cuts her way through the humans to meet with Cassandra and Varric, and the path is cleared before her. It parts like fire.


	7. The Hinterlands: The East Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are children barely up to my knee here. Living in these hovels. There is blood and ash in the air and they stick their small little hands in their mouths and stare at me through hair that hangs limp in their faces between skirts and legs and open doors and windows.

You do not leave soldiers at the doorstep of a settlement – temporary or not – and then leave. Only an idiot does that. These people are starving and sick and dying. I don’t need to ask to see that. And having Inquisition forces going through isn’t going to help that, either.

Yes, it will protect them from outside forces, but it’ll suck them dry.

So I ask. And the wolf watches, and the dwarf’s eyes calculate, and the Seeker stares at the back of my head as if my flesh and bone will part to allow her to see into my mind.

I am a First, regardless of what anyone would say. I was born a First, I was bred a First, and I will die a First.

There are children barely up to my knee here. Living in these hovels. There is blood and ash in the air and they stick their small little hands in their mouths and stare at me through hair that hangs limp in their faces between skirts and legs and open doors and windows.

Ram’s meat. Blankets. A healer. Get rid of the fighting. Medicine for a mother – What is the boy even doing? Running off like that? What kind of idiot son leaves his sick mother and takes the secret of her medicine with him? If he had to leave, he should have had enough sense to leave the recipe, or at least some of it with his parents.

As I approach the edge of the Crossroads, the wolf whispers to me, a black ink-spill that slips and glides over the rocks and grass. A ghost and a shadow. A flicker at the edge of my vision that threatens to form into something _real_.

“There is an elvhen artifact nearby. Just ahead, I have a suspicion of what it is, but I will not know until I see it. Go to it. You will feel it as you draw closer, as well.” I quickly dip my chin down and he vanishes. Gone but always present.

The dwarf is no longer looking at me, but the Seeker still is. I flex my hand, nervous. What is she looking _for_?

A woman in the Inquisition’s uniform – her name is Belette - stops us just before we pass through an archway and warns us about bandits. Bandits who don’t seem like bandits. It seems odd. Bandits are bandits. What more is there?

But Cassandra and Varric don’t seem to be willing to say anything or add to that, so I nod and move forward, ready to draw my staff at any time.

As we walk up the gentle incline of the path I look for signs of people. Disturbance. I move off the path, onto the sparse grass and rock, to higher ground, keeping my body low, scanning -

In the distance I can see something. Not right. Motion – wood? Boxes. Flutter of cloth -

“Bandits,” I turn to Cassandra and Varric, Cassandra is already fixing her shield onto her arm, and Varric has unholstered Bianca. I turn back to look, carefully standing as much as I dare. If I can see them, they can see _me_. “Well armed. Ready.”

Waiting.

“I will go in first.” Cassandra says, “Be careful. There are only the three of us, and if we are overwhelmed it will be hard to retreat.”

“And where would we retreat _to_ , Seeker?” Varric says, “The camp full of sick and starving refugees at our backs?”

A flicker of a smile that I tuck away, quick, so it is unseen.

Cassandra lets out a long-suffering sigh – what is _their_ story? – and moves with sharp steps ahead.

Varric throws a smile at me and I move to follow.

I know that I should wait for Cassandra to engage. She has the steel and she has the strength to draw their attention – but if I strike fast – if I can do even a little bit of damage to make the fight easier -

 _There are so many of them compared to us_ -

I have the advantage. I am unseen. I am far away. I have time to run, and to get to me they would have to get through _her_ first.

I bring down the chains of lightning, focusing on drawing the pathway with my mana, delicate strings of mana that whisper-call-entice the spark of lightning to follow, before ducking and rolling behind a rock. Cassandra breaks out into a run as the bandits yell curses and snarl in pain.

Varric aims and the _twang_ of Bianca is loud and crisp in my ears over the dusty sound of running feet.

I focus on Cassandra’s back and I cast the barrier. Quickly, carefully – and I watch as it wobbles into being. The front is strong, and it deflects the first attack well. The bandit’s strike deflects off the barrier before he gets near her shield. And Cassandra uses his surprise to slam her shield upwards, lifting him off his feet and throwing him back. There is so much strength in her. I cannot imagine doing that.

The next blow that strikes the barrier is not deflected, but it is slowed as it cuts through, and Cassandra uses that to strike at the bandit’s head with the pommel of her sword.

 _Twang, twang_ two bolts – one in a bandit’s shoulder, the daggers drop and the bandit yells in pain, as he reaches up to touch the wound. The other in another bandit’s thigh and he buckles, going down onto one knee, shield weighing him down as he falls onto his side.

The _click-shhht_ of Varric reloading.

 _Twang, twang_ an arrow bounces off surprisingly good leather on the bandit running towards him – us.

Cassandra turns but her attention is drawn back – she raises her shield in time to avoid being shot by an archer. Varric shifts his weight back, ready to fire two more bolts before retreating from the charging shem.

I focus on feeling the energy. The water in the air. Harder, here – not much of it – but it is always _there_. Hahren was right. It is there, the energy – he means, not just the water – but the energy is there, waiting to be held.

So I hold it.

I move from behind the rock to stand next to Varric – and I see the archers in the back turn their attention towards me. That is what they always do first. Find the mage. Always take out the mage first. The easiest and worst targets. I stand next to him and focus on the man charging him – us – hand outstretched. It feels like a moment where time should slow.

It happens in battles, sometimes. Where time slows – that is how they always write it, in books. But it does not slow, it speeds up to meet you – arms flung open – and I throw my mana out. A net gone wide and _crush_.

I grasp air with my fist, and hear the _crack_ of ice forming at rapid speed – hope that it is solid enough, that I am enough mana and will to hold it – and _throw_.

Like I taught her, but improved upon. I taught her to cast the net, to hold. She casts the mana out, she catches the energy, she holds it, and then she calls it, moves it – throws it. It moves through the air cracking and hissing with bitter cold and straight into the attacker’s chest.

It is weak, it is not as good as it could be. But it is _enough_.

The man staggers, falls back, but is not felled. He gasps, a rattling wheeze as the heat is ripped from his body. The shock of it. The shatter of it.

I reach out and curl my finger’s into Varric’s thick coat and _yank_.

“Higher.” I push-pull-shove him towards the rock I was hiding behind.

“Don’t need to tell _me_ twice.” Varric says, scrambling up, Bianca already reloaded. “Nice trick, kid.”

"Thank you.” She throws out, staff drawn as she spins and calls formless energy. There is a flow to her, as she moves. A ripple, like water or a ribbon. Steady. She throws her mana at the archers, and throws out a barrier around Cassandra who is already running to meet the archers up close.

I breathe in deep when it is done and Cassandra yanks her sword out of the last archer.

One foot in front of the other, I bend down to search the pockets. A note – I hold it out to Cassandra.

“I cannot read it.” I tell her. She blinks, surprised - “I cannot read.”

“I thought you read Varric’s work?” She asks, taking the paper and skimming it.

“The hahren read it out loud to us.” I reply, shrugging. “I can – I recognize the shapes. Sometimes. I know the shapes that mean _templar_. I know the shapes that mean _chantry_. I even know the shapes that mean _Varric_.”

The dwarf huffs a laugh, “Good words to know. Sometimes they’re all you need to figure out which way to go.”

I palm more gold into my pockets – more gold than I know what to do with, I am sure the quartermaster will know. Shems like their gold. – and find bits of cloth. Varric inspects some crates.

“Not ordinary bandits.” Varric says. “Too well supplied for bandits.”

“These are orders.” Cassandra says, handing the paper to Varric, she frowns, scanning the area. “To keep the area quiet. There are more of them.”

“Patrol routes. I found a map.” Varric says, spreading some paper out over a crate. I stand to look over his shoulder. The squiggles mean nothing to me, I do not know their shapes and faces. One of Varric’s thick fingers points - “We’re here. This x is the one we just took out.” He taps at the black mark. “Two more right near here. That way and one a little further ahead, if these things are updated.”

“We need to find out why.” Cassandra says, “As Belette said, the East Road is not safe for travel otherwise. And if there is something more than just bandits – “

I turn and walk in the direction Varric pointed, stepping over bodies. “Then we find out if there is more than just bandits.”

The wolf’s head turns to me. “The artifact is nearby.”

Varric falls into step next to me and Cassandra walks four paces ahead of us, shield and sword at the ready.

“Where are you going? The artifact is _the other way_.” The wolf waves his hand as I turn my back on him to follow the path the letters Cassandra read off the dead bandits left. I follow her as we meander our way towards the cliffs.

I ignore him.

He is ignored.

She ignores me.

The second fight is very much the same as the first. My spells are still unsteady. But I think I am learning where to focus my barriers. To the front for Varric, more towards Cassandra’s right and up, because she is slower to get her shield up to block there.

The third patrol is the hardest. They are in a small clearing among the rocks, narrow. Their archers have the advantage in that. I cast the barriers many times, and duck-move-dodge-try-to-hide to avoid arrows. The strip of one stings my face as I move. Lucky, that.

“We should set up a camp, here.” Cassandra says afterwards as I hand her a restoration potion. The glass bottles clink heavy at my hip. I am aware of them. I am not used to carrying such things. Rich things. Clay jars, poultices, creams, tucked away safe in the Keeper’s aravel wrapped carefully in cloth in the dark. Hoping that no one needs them. Hoping that no one will need them.

Glass they carry out in the daylight. She drinks. The glass is cool underneath my fingers.

Such finery.

“And look at this.” Varric says, picking up a note. “A letter. They’re looking for something here. Or at least, they’ve already found it. I think this is Carta. Mining operation. No seal, no idea who it is. But we can probably find out.”

More words and worlds I do not know.

“Nice moves back there, kid.” Varric says as Cassandra wipes sweat from her brow. Her black hair sticks to her forehead. She moves so well in her iron shell.

“I’m getting in a lot of practice.” I reply. “We have no camp supplies.”

“We are not far from the Crossroads.” Cassandra says.

“I’ll go.” Varric says, holstering Bianca. “The Seeker must be tired from killing things and Bianca and I could use some alone time.”

I open my mouth to protest – he is just as tired as she is. I am faster. I would not get lost. But he is already walking away and Cassandra looks relieved as she sinks into the shade once more, heavily folding herself to the ground, eyes closing as she catches her breath.

I leave her to her peace and turn to the walls that grow above us. These are the kind of stone walls I know. Uneven, jagged, rough and weather loved. Open. I can see iron deposits in them, and I move to take the tools the quarter master gave me to try and coax them out of the stone. I practiced near Haven, I will practice here as well.

It is tempting to fall into complete silence as I pick, pick, pick at iron. But there are things that spin in my head and I have always been terrible with holding questions.

“Cassandra?”

“Yes?”

“Before – the hunter in the village. He said that they could now hunt, something about – “ My mind and mouth shape the strange word “ – bannorn? What does that mean? Were they – were they not able to hunt before?”

I know that among shems they are not all hunters. Some of them have never touched a bow and arrow in their lives. Some of them do not even know how to tell blood lotus from black lotus. But there were hunters in that village. And the common folk of the shems usually tend to know that kind of thing.

Cassandra does not answer, and I wonder if I have asked something offensive. I turn to look at her but her face is not unkind.

“It is – complicated to explain. I, myself, think it is a foolish notion.” She finally answers. “In Ferelden and in Orlais, land belongs to the lords. People may live on that land, farm it, pay for it, but they do not own it. So any game that runs on it is forbidden to them. Hunting is a sport only for lords.” She snorts, “Stupid. Especially in times like these – but it is politics.” Her lip curves upwards, “I detest it.”

“That seems very strange. When you are hungry you hunt. When you are thirsty you drink.” I reply. It is strange to think that land can _belong_ to someone exclusively. The land belongs to everyone. The land belongs to itself.

“Yes.” Cassandra replies, shaking her head. “I wish it were that simple. Things rarely are.”

I frown to the stone.

Varric returns shortly after and I listen as he and the Seeker fall into snipping, snapping conversation. I listen. I watch.

I sit on a rock as we wait for the Inquisition forces to come and claim the camp. Varric is yanking bolts out of bodies to be reused, and Cassandra leans against the rocks in the shade, eyes closing for rest. I pull out elfroot that I had gathered from the small pouch at my hip. They are crumpled, but still somewhat fresh. I pull my legs up, creating a bowl with the cloth of my borrowed coat. It smells like warm leather, oil, and age. It does not fit well on me, but it keeps the chill out at night, and it is sturdy. Varric assures me that I will grow into it. Cassandra had suggested that I get it altered when we return to haven.

I think it was taken off the body of a dead shem.

It is still better than nothing.

I draw the fabric over my lap, and lay the elfroot down. One, two, three – ten. Ten fine stalks of elfroot. Green and smelling like life and healing wounds. Promises.

Her fingers are loving, soft, happy – this is the work she is meant to do. It is all she knows, it is all she has ever known, it is her core. He watches, irritated and intrigued because she ignored him. She has _been_ ignoring him and he does not know why. He wants to drag her out of her dreams and ask – why did you ignore me? You fear me, I know it is in you, you respect me in every breath,  but why did you ignore me? Wait. There will be time, patience.

She runs the pads of her thumbs over velvet stalks, brushing dirt and dead-sleeping insects off of the undersides of leaves. She pinches brown and scrapes away black. She plucks tendrils of little vines, curling green that looks like spider-silk and lets it drift down to the cool, cool earth. Small leaves, smaller than the size of her smallest finger nail she crushes between her fingers and spreads over her mouth. Warm and bitter, a slight burn but good for dry skin. Cover.

Then she braids them.

Soft and yielding and somehow still resisting  under her fingers as she weaves stalks together. She pushes leaves in and around, bending and testing for limits before they snap. Careful. He watches. They watch.

Her face is calm. This is her purpose, she thinks. This is who she is.

She is no Sylaise. She is no Mythal.

He knows who she is not.

Three stalks braided, set aside, bound tight to braid another three. Keeps them fresh, keeps them un-crushed, keeps them well. Keeper.

Soft like hair, so small, so thin – memory -

When I grow up I want to have hair like mamae’s, her beautiful braid that dangles over her smooth shoulder and tickles the palm of my hand when I touch it. Will I have hair that beautiful, like yours? Of course you will, of course.

Then the earth sings and they take her hair. She does not cry, it is an honor. She does not cry. Hair like mamae’s, she watches it fall. Tufts of dandelion seeds into the fire. The earth sings and she is a gift. She is their pride. First of Lavellan.

Hair grows back.

She grows their people.

Gather the ashes.

Her hair grew back.

(She does not want to grow their people. She does not want to touch the ash.)

They stay until the soldiers come, with druffalo bearing canvas and wood. They stay and she slips the braids of heal-alls into her little pouch at her hip and moves to join them.

She does not have to.

“Leave it to them. It is their job.” He says to me. I ignore him again. I am not a fool. He is not me. He is a god. What does _he_ have to fear? He sleeps somewhere, guarded by magic and divinity. I will sleep here, surrounded in shems with no witnesses. I am not a fool. I am not a fool again. Irritation spreads over his face, mild, mild, May. Do all the gods look as shallow as he feels? She thinks she likes him better as a wolf. It’s more honest, somehow. Even if the face is different. It means more. She understands more.

I like him as a wolf because he is a wolf. As a man he is mild. He hides well. Wolves bare their teeth. Men swallow their snarls.

“No.” The word slips past my teeth and I let it.

I offer my hands to the people setting up tents and I watch them watch me without watching. I am not to be executed or hanged. I am their Herald even if I don’t want to be, even if it kills me. But I am still _me_.

They look at me without looking and I know. I have been near enough shems to know that. They glance up towards the sky to check the time and weather, and as their eyes wander up they trace the lines of my vallaslin. As our hands work to set up the tents, they let their eyes slide over the tips of my ears as they turn to talk to someone over my shoulder or to the side or elsewhere. Their eyes look into mine when they speak but they do not see my eyes. They see the light of the world reflected in my irises and they drop their heads to their work.

I look for hidden traps underneath the tents. I look for adders and insects tucked into corners where I will not see them until it is too late. I look for poison slipped into rations. I look for daggers in the dark of shadows and the disguise of backs.

You _never_ let someone else tend to the place you lay your head. _Never_ let a stranger do that. It is stupid for you to do that. You do not leave the work of setting up the place you lay your body down, where you lay your arms down, to another. No one is that naive. _No one_. I refuse to believe that.

As they set up other things – tables, more tents, a pen for the horses, adjustments for the cages with the crows – I move towards the fire. I point at the vegetables that need to be cut and the scout who adds water to the heavy pot that hangs nods at me. Her face is steady.

I take the clean knife on the wooden board and start to cut. I scale the fish, and I help pour the water and I slowly add in the salt and gently drop ingredients in one at a time. The steam lifts into my face – like a wisp – and the woman who adds the water gives me a smile.

“It smells better than when I make it.” She says. I lift my mouth and my eyes for her. She smiles at me.

That is one who has been won.

This is what the Keeper does. This is what the holder does. This is what I know. This is what I am and what they are going to try and unmake me.

I can feel the wolf waiting for me to sleep.

I slip into the tent that I will share with Cassandra. She is already there, sitting on the ground and slowly, slowly, removing the metal that holds her in. Her fingers are slow and careful, smaller without the gauntlets and gloves and greaves. I am starting to see _her_.

She is gentle with her armor, tender. These pieces of her that come off.

I slowly kneel behind her - “May I?”

She pauses and lowers her hand, “Please.”

I am careful as she is careful, with her back. The leather is worn and soft, velvet against my fingers. The armor is heavy as we lift it off her head, and I a so amazed at how she can run-move-breathe with it. She is so _strong_.

When shems come I run, when shems come with their swords raised high and anger on their face she matches it with her own. She is steel. She is iron. She is strength. She does not waver.

Careful, I warm my hands with mana, and gently touch the places I know must hurt on her back. She tenses for a moment as I push against the quilted frabric that lies under – asking.

I listen to her undo the front of the doublet, and her back is strong-stronger when it bares itself in scars and stories.

Her order is not my order. These scars are not from my cause. But she earned them. I think of the hunters of my clan and I think of the men and women with teeth and daggers. They, too, fight for order.

I can respect those who fight for it. For others. I have only ever fought for myself – until now – and she has earned these in the defense of blood that is not hers. She has earned these breaking and building.

I touch my mana-warm-fingers to her battle-worn skin and kneed like bread that is built and broken open and feeds many. The heavy thing that fills and keeps you going. I heal and soothe.

“Thank you.” I say. Because she has saved my life so many times over. Her order is not my order, and maybe she knows that too, but she let me live. And she puts herself between danger and me. Many times without ever asking. She puts herself between danger and Varric, too – even though they do not like each other.

Cassandra sighs low and her body-like-bread-and-bravery bends under my hands.

“That is – “ She starts, stops, starts again, “You are good at this. It is I who should thank you.”

“Any healer knows how to massage.” I reply. Aches and bruises, pains and pulls. Fingers are a healer’s first tools.

“Yes. But also – for this.” She waves her hand, a sharp movement like the rest of her. “For staying. For helping. I know that – I know that we did not treat you well. I know that I, myself, have given you cause to look upon us with distaste. I am – as Leliana would say – without tact. I am brash. I act. I do not think. My emotions capture the best of me. But you stayed. And you helped. You asked the people at the Crossroads how you could assist. You ask questions.” She pauses. “You have done more for the people than the Chantry has.”

“I do not know much about your Chantry.” I admit. “Other than it is dangerous.”

Cassandra lets out a soft laugh. “I suppose I cannot deny it. It wasn’t always like this, though. The Chantry used to be _hope_. It used to _help people_.”

“How?”

“Charity.” Cassandra replies. “It wasn’t always about politics and pontification. It was about – it was about helping people. Feeding the poor, clothing them, sheltering them. Educating them. Helping those in need. Making the suffering less. Now it’s – it’s ceremony. It’s as bad as the nobility at times. It has _forgotten_. They forget the Chant.”

I do not know the Chant. I ease the knots in her, touching my mana to her spirit, pushing at the pathways of energy that are blocked and muddled by tension and pain and discomfort. I ease them soft. Like elfroot braids, in reverse. Gently, testing, careful.

“I would like to know more. I mean – if the Chantry is the enemy. If – if I am going to help you. I think I should know more.” I say. She is quiet.

“I do not now if I am the best to tell you.”

“Who better than you? You are the Right Hand of the Divine. A Seeker of Truth.”

“I do not know the truth, any longer. And the Divine is – dead.”

“But you believe. You – you love and you believe.” I frown at her back. “Who better to teach me than one who believes?”

Cassandra pauses to look over her shoulder. “What do you believe in?”

“The Creators.” I reply, instant. How can I not, when Fen’Harel’s magic hisses and crashes against my own? “In truth – I do not quite know, anymore.”

He is a man and he is a wolf and he is divine and he sleeps.

Cassandra turns away. “Then I will believe for us both. And – if you wish. I could try. I am not good with words, but I will try to tell you what I can.”

We lie down in silence, and even as my eyes close I see the wolf’s eyes glow above mine.

And I am gone.

“Why did you not listen to me?” The wolf as a man bears down on me, god and hahren and man and mortal and divine at once. I square my shoulders, lift my chin even as my hands shake, fingers knots behind my back.

“Would your artifact have moved?” I ask.

“What?” He looks baffled for a moment, thrown.

“Would this artifact of yours have moved? Is it moving? Is it capable of moving?” I repeat. “Would it have harmed others? Does it cause harm? Does it move and can it spread? Is it a danger?”

His eyes narrow, mouth a fine line.

“You have slept long, Dread Wolf. And you do not know what it means to be chased as those who are mortal do.” The words are careful, careful, cautious. “I do not know what it was like in Arlathan, for a God. But for _me_ , a mortal in a world of _shems –_ when there is an unknown enemy you must face, a _hostile_ unknown enemy, you take them out as soon as possible. When you have them by surprise, you take the chance. Your artifact will be there. It will be there until it is moved. It harms none. These bandits – they were planted there with purpose. To harm. They were placed there to hurt. They have hurt. We had information they did not know we had. We had surprise. We took it. The threat is gone. The roads are safe. We have more information. The enemy is gone. And now it is safe to lay down arms and rest. They might have moved, might have changed tactics if we waited. If they found out. Your artifact remains, Dread Wolf.”

He evaluates me, I am analyzed. Taken apart to pieces.

“I differ to you, hahren, and apologize.” I lower my eyes. “In matters of battle and – _politics_ for I am  untried and unaware. I am an ignorant da’len in matters of negotiations and the Fade and the history of the People. But I know what I must do to survive. I am not so green and fresh as that.”

I have bled. I bleed. I remain.

“You do survive.” The wolf says after a beat, and his face is a mask once more. Hahren and distant and a lie. The shadows speak the truth. Unblinking eyes open full. “I will take this into consideration, Lavellan.”

She watches him, and dips her head when she finds what she looks for. Or not.

“I will concede to you, then. On this.” The wolf says, and turns his body away from her. Hahren. “Your spells are stronger. They still lack, but they are more stable. You have progressed quickly, da’len. But I notice that you have yet to call flame.”

“I still do not understand.” I reply, “I practice. But it slips from me.”

The memory of halla kisses, wisps – soft warmth. I do not know how to turn that into a weapon.

“Flame is similar to lightning.” The wolf says, hand raising, twisting – long fingers drawing together like he is spinning a globe of water, but flame comes instead. Quiet flame. “You charge it, and the mana releases as energy and heat. Lightning is momentary, it is following a trail. Fire is condensed and thus the mana must constantly be fed, or at the very least, given enough that once it leaves you it will continue to burn until it finds a new source. The patterns are different.”

“Anger and comfort.” She says.

“Any emotion, truly, can feed any of the elements.” He replies. “But yes, most teach fire with anger, pain, hurt, violence. It need not be so. But for many their anger burns. Yours,” His eyes flick to me and he extinguishes the flame with a clench of his fist, “Snaps.”

“I still do not understand.”

“You are sheltered.” He says, “In time you will understand. In time. For now – tell me your plans. It will take time for this Mother Giselle to get to Haven, and more time still for those names to be gathered and dealt with.”

“I was told to secure the area.” She says, hesitant, “To find allies for the Inquisition’s cause, if I could. I – do not know how.”

“You wield the name of their prophet.” He says, “Do as she did.”

“Burn?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Give them something. Give them what they want. For now.”

“And what do they want?”

“Food. Shelter. Little things. You heard them.” He tilts his head. Wolf and man. Man and god. “It would endear you to them. The Seeker told you – the Chantry does not act. You _can_. It would earn your favor while taking away from theirs. More than that – they would think of _you_.” His lips twitch upwards, “It would be _you_ gaining influence. Even if this Inquisition should turn against you – unlikely, for the moment – it would give them cause to hesitate. They would remember you well.”

“So – help the people. Just – do what I’ve been doing and see where that takes me?” I doubt that killing a few rams or clearing a road will make people overlook the fact that they think I killed their Divine. It would not change my ears or my marks.

“It will take you far.” Fen’Harel replies, turning to walk away. “The power of the small voices can often drown out the large – given enough of a push.”

I watch him walk away. And the Fade separates us, as I slip into a dream without form and he goes -

He goes.


	8. The Hinterlands: Mihris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As if the mark on my hand and the fact I am fighting alongside a shemlen warrior of the Chantry and a dwarf story teller isn’t odd enough.

I know her. We all know her. There is not a single Dalish clan in all of Thedas who does not know of _Mihris_. The lone survivor of Clan Virnehn. Her story is known to all of us. We know of the betrayals, the blood, Briala’s ultimatum to our shared past. There are few elves as famous – or perhaps, depending on which clan you ask, _infamous_ – as she in recent history. Dalish or otherwise.

Some call her Harellan.

I do not.

I do not know what I would have done in her place – had I lost my clan, if I had been forced to work within the system of the shemlen who killed them, if I had been held back from the legacy our people have lost.

“Hahren.” I dip my head to her as she flicks demon ichor off the end of her staff. “Mihris. I am – surprised to find you in these parts. What brings you to Ferelden?”

She blinks at me - “Ah. First of Lavellan, yes? I could say the same thing.” She smiles at me, eyes flicking from me to the Cassandra and Varric behind me. Her eyes crinkle-tighten-close a little. She looks at me and her hand twitches at her side.

My hand in front of me, where the other two cannot see, I sign the hunter’s signal -

 _Alright_.

She angles her body as she speaks, face relaxing into a mask that we all learn to wear -

“And what brings you so far from your clan, Lavellan? I had heard news of your clan, near Wycome. Were you not getting ready for the Arlathvhen? You are of age, yes?”

She signs -

_Captured? Will unbroken, body safe, mind whole?_

I sign back -

_Shelter of stags horns._

The wolf is beyond us, gazing towards crumbled rock, but his ear flicks in my direction.

“It is here.” He says.

“What brings you here, hahren?” I repeat. She smiles, a small quirk of her full lips.

“I am not that much older, or wiser, than you, Lavellan.” She teases, turning to wave a hand towards the rubble. “I heard news of an artifact of our people, here. And with recent events, I had hoped that the shemlen would be too busy worrying about other things than a lone Dalish wandering.”

“I thought you were going to find another clan.” I ask as she signs -

_Foxes hunt hares._

I dip my head, quietly pointing towards the direction of the Breach. Her dark eyes shutter in understanding.

“You are not wrong. I passed few clans on my way to what I understand as the meeting of our people.” She says, “But I heard news of this, and I could not pass up the opportunity. I underestimated myself. _Ma serannas_ , Lavellan. I did not expect so many demons to have come out of the Fade. Perhaps together we can find this artifact.”

There is so much I want to ask her, but with Varric and Cassandra listening, and with the limitations of the signs we can hide, I cannot. I nod, turning to address the two behind me.

“Mihris, this is Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, her shield guards against many fangs and her sword sings true, and author Varric Tethras. His tales make for good fire-side songs.” She nods, polite and Varric offers her one of his grins. Cassandra returns the nod. “This is Mihris, an accomplished mage among the Dalish.”

“Though some would argue what sort of accomplishments.” Mihris teases.

“There is something near here that she is investigating.” _We_ , though no one need know that. “Perhaps it will be useful to know for the – the Inquisition.”

With my back to Mihris as I address Cassandra and Varric, I rapidly sign -

_Shelter of stag horns. Fox hunt hares._

Twice and hope she understands with those few signs.

And I hope that she is as open minded about this as my clan has been of her, and returns that courtesy. Even if I do not travel with them. Even if I am only a First.

He watches, impatient but curious. Her hands – fingers – fly into odd shapes, speaking to the other elf. The one called _Mihris_ marked with June’s brand. A note to ask later -

He is not keen on this _Mihris_. He does not know her, _da’asha_ does and seems to trust her. But why? How far does that trust extend? Are they _lethallan_? No. Unlikely. Familiar, but not close. Acquainted? Odd. The Dalish are much more fragmentary than that. More questions from questions. It would be infuriating if it were not so interesting. A pleasant distraction. A puzzle to unwind the mind.

There are many questions, these, at least, do not require immediate attention.

He is uncertain of the artifact that resides within the stone, but he recognizes it. He can feel June’s craft, and a touch of Mythal. He can feel his own magic within as well. He is beginning to get an idea of what it could be. There were precious few things that they worked together to create – few that would have survived this long, at any rate.

Mihris and I move to stand in front of the rubble.

“Allow me.” I say, “How long were you fighting demons?”

“Shems, demons, bears.” Mihris sighs, “Please. _Ir nuvenin dirth’an na’vir’Lavellan._ The magic of the Keepers in the Free Marches, I am told, is much more beautiful than that of the Keepers of Orlais.”

I smile, laugh a little, “You flatter me.”

I plant my feet and call the magic that I have practiced since I was young and unmarked. This is my element. The magic of a Keeper.

It is not ice or fire or lightning. It is not even the spirit magic that creates barriers or blasts of force.

It is restoration, it is healing. It is the feeling of the earth and stone, grass and water under my feet, the _pulse_ of it. It is a story. It is a memory. It is the heart of us.

My heels dig into the soft soil – it gives under my bones and holds and I can imagine the burst of the smell - and I call to the stone, my mana sliding into cracks and whispering. _Remember_.

The stone knows how it used to be, the land knows how this place once was. It only needs to be reminded to _be_. Mana curls around my hands and arms as I raise them up, fingers curling as I call the roots of the vines and moss and grasses in the area – _halani._ Help them remember, hold them, heal them.

The stones rumble, the magic of what they once were responding to my nudge as they settle into place like pieces of a wooden puzzle box. I nudge the moss and vines, the roots, to slip into the seams and cracks where the stone has long eroded and weathered away, holding fast and securing the stone in place.

The mana around my arms flicker-burns green and call faint, whispering, shadowy hands that echo my own to hold the stone as they tuck themselves into position, settling and recalling. It is not nearly as solid or physical as fire or ice, it is a memory, a thought, an intention that wavers between _here_ and not. Where it should be, where it is not meant to be.

They know how they should be, time and neglect and violence make them forget. But deep inside, they remember their purpose, their shapes. They become themselves. They are becoming.

 _Keep to the old ways. Hold them high. Let them guide you._ The Keeper’s voice in my head as I mend stone and whisper for elfroot to unfurl green leaves.

Curious, her magic.

Mihris hums in delight, “They say that of all the Dalish, it is those of the Free Marches that sing to memory best.”

“And they say of the Orlesian Dalish, it is they who breathe life back into it.” I return. They live in the Dales, they remember, they see, they war, they rebuild, and they wait. The Dalish of Orlais are the vanguard of our people. Holding a line against an empire built on the blood of our ancestors and descendants. An empire running on stolen time.

The wolf’s eyes gleam ruby and I do not even need to look at him directly to sense his distaste.

Sometimes it feels like he is that which the stories tell us. But the wolf cannot have _hated_ our people. It makes no sense. Why would he hate our people? We had statues of him, we _have_ statues of him. We have stories of him coming to our aide in his own way, giving us his advice. Why does he scorn us – me – in the same breath that he teaches me and promises me freedom and knowledge? So many contradictions. Too many.

A knot of questions.

It tightens inside of my bones and ties my jaw shut.

I can feel it in her, in him, in them – they want to ask.

They want to ask what we say, what we are doing.

She wants to ask what I am doing here, why I am not preparing for the Arlathvhen, if the rumors are true -

_Da’len, this is all you are._

_I am more. I will be more._

_You cast aside your duties._

_My greatest duty is to myself. I do not care if I am selfish. I am me. And I will love me. This is for me. Everything else I give to the People. But not this. Not me. I cannot._

_You will._

_Watch me._

They are. They are not. Compromise.

 _Once_ , I promise, horror stinging my lips as I cave to her wise eyes. _Once, at the Arlathvhen._

Once, she repeats. Once.

Never, the mark on my hand sings without singing. The wolf does not know.

He wonders, too, who Mihris is. To me. To him. Nothing, truly.

I shake my hands, feel the mana disperse, spool into me like thread, fade away into the air like steam. It feels good to use it to build instead of destroy. It feels right. It is the reason why I am First. It is the reason why I am chosen. It is the reason why I left.

We enter into the pathway the stone reveals, and I feel it moments before Cassandra yells -

“ _Aside!”_ Mihris and I part to allow her to move forward, blocking the first strike of the demon’s bulk as it emerges from the shadows. I throw out my barrier, and both Mihris and I press to the sides to allow Varric as clean of a shot as he can get. It is narrow here, and Cassandra blends into the darkness.

“ _Fenedhis_.” Mihris snaps under her breath. I can feel her mana – weak, still tainted by demons even though it has been months, if not years, since she escaped Ishmael, and faltering from travel and the battles it took to get her here. I watch the flame she throws flicker-falter, and I move in front of her before I can truly think-process. Between the two of us, I was a First far more recently than she.

Instinct, maybe.

There are only two demons, and the close quarters work well for Cassandra as the demons never quite get a chance to come near us. She is a bulwark of flesh and determination. Varric, at her back, is precise, bolts sliding home in narrow spaces in ways that neither Mihris’ nor my own magic could manage.

From the light behind us, I can make out an iron brazier. It sings of magic.

“Veilfire.” The wolf whispers, only eyes. “Light it.”

I swallow, mouth dry. I have no kindling, there is nothing to feed it.

“Do not be afraid.” He says, patient – wearing thin, anxious to find this artifact - “It knows what it should be. It remembers. Veilfire is not real, it is only the memory of flames. Just make it remember. As with lightning, show it the path.”

Like the stone, I think, as I raise my hand, calling mana once more. I feel resonance within the brazier, a whisper – a faint song of mana, faint and old. And it leaps into green-ethereal life as my mana finds the spark sleeping inside of it.

Mihris lets out a small sigh of wonder. I hold my hand out -

“A torch.”

I close my hand – the hand that feeds, the hand that remembers – around air, and watch as memory condenses like ice, a torch that looks and feels like iron, blazing green-white in my hand. But _isn’t_. It isn’t real. I know it, yet it feels real – casts light as if it were real.

“Well done.” The wolf’s voice is pleased, and echoes within me, without me. Almost warm. A memory of pride.

“Ma serannas.” I say – to him, to Mihris who whispers about Keeper magic.

It is not Keeper magic.

She does not need to know this.

As I turn to proceed forward, I catch a glimpse of Varric’s face – and he looks. _He looks at me._

I tear my eyes away. He looks as if he knows. How would he know -

She is uneasy. I can feel the sleeping, dormant power of the artifact – I am certain I know what it is. Mythal had us make it – June and I – to strengthen the Veil. I was willing. Unwilling. Both. To spite Elgar’nan, but to enforce that which kept my friends away -

The durgen’len narrows his eyes at her back. Suspicious. He should not be. Why would he find something to be suspicious about? It is flame – the Seeker does not look suspicious. What does he _know_?

“More demons ahead.” Cassandra calls out – I hesitate, I cannot wield my staff with one hand – not well, anyway – and casting offensive spells with one hand is bound to go as well as it does when I cast them at all. Mihris is still strained and weakened -

“ _Drop it!”_ The wolf snaps as shades swarm up the dark stairs towards us. “You can _relight it_.”

I drop it, and I can feel the torch extinguish, disappear from this time – this place – once more as I swing my staff off my back and lash out.

Better. Improving. Nervous in close combat. But adept. No vulnerabilities to the ill will of demons. _Good_. Can be better.

Cassandra calls the all clear as I shake away the feeling of demons in the air. I raise my hand back to the brazier, and copy the movement again – calling another torch from memory.

The memory of a memory.

“There.” The wolf sits, curled around a strange spherical object, a lantern or some such thing. Like the stone and the brazier, I can feel a memory within. It sings of -

“ _Fen’Harel.”_ His name slips past my lips and Mihris cuts a sharp glance my way. Varric, too - “I mean – I’m surprised.”

Telling the truth without telling the truth. Clever girl. Knows how to work around her weaknesses. Has been. Sharp.

I can feel the Fade, the Veil, curling around and trapped tight inside of it. A trapped song, a portion of it – I raise the hand my free hand – it is not Keeper magic. It is _his_ magic that wells up within me.

Fen’Harel lets out a soft sigh, and the red eyes close – invisible in the dark, no eyes, no light, no shape, no form, no breath. Gone but here. Present but not. Elsewhere, else-when.

His magic flows through me, a gentle wave that feels like being pushed by a warm wave. A swell of mana that makes me think of warm lakes and sighing fields.

The artifact lights up from within, the song within it resounding against the wolf’s mana and the missing pieces, the sleeping ones, slat into place. It hums to life, a barrier – green and jade and pale sea-foam sighs to life around it.

“It strengthens the Veil.” The wolf says, eyes opening one by one and he curls around it. “ _We_ made it to strengthen the Veil.”

Pleased, pleasure, pleasing. It pulls out of him and through _me_. I can feel it. A swell in his mana. Irresistible. A swell that makes me want to push up onto my toes and release the air in my lungs. Pushed.

I turn to see Mihris searching through debris -

“And it would seem the ancestors have left something for me as well.” She says, holding up an amulet that glimmers with mana in the light of the veilfire and the artifact.

The wolf draws in a sharp breath -

“Do not let her have it.”

I scramble to think as Varric examines some old pots and markings on the dank walls, and Cassandra looks through the demon’s ichor for – I’m not sure. I know that sometimes – on the few occasions my clan would come across and fight demons, sometimes they would leave strange, glistening, half-humming pieces behind. Good for magic. And sometimes they would even leave behind claws. Good for weapons.

I did not think the shemlen did that with the demon remains, too.

Mihris is – she is not someone I am willing to upset. To some she is Harellan, but to many she is _not_. She is respected and will most likely be at the Arlathvhen. To disrespect her – and her not knowing the circumstances of my presence here, it would insult my clan’s honor if I were to insult hers -

“ _Na halani_ , Mihris.” I say, hands at my sides. She turns up to me, eyebrow raising as I lower my head to her. “ _Na’enaste_.”

I press against her mana with my own, gentle, pleading.

To seal the hole in the sky, I want to say, to appease the wolf who hunts alone, I wish I could tell her. I am caught, as you were caught. But I do not think I will ever be free as you are, now.

She looks at me for a moment, something hard and dark flickering over her face before she closes her eyes and breathes. Her mana is so weak, almost like a thin egg’s shell. Empty on the inside. I can feel the taint of the demons who possessed her. Lingering. Draining.

“Take it.” She says, “Perhaps it will help with the rip in the Veil. Perhaps not. _Dareth shiral,_ Lavellan.” She hands the amulet over. I can feel it thrum, quiet and soft, with dormant mana. My fingers close around it, and the mana in my bones seems to _hum_ , vibrating – a buzz on my lips and skin. Her eyes open again and her mana presses against my own. So thin it might shatter.

Mihris looks at me again, and I wonder when I will see one of the people again. I wish to soak in her, in _us_.

I wonder when was the last time _she_ was among our people.

She turns and walks away. The pendant hums and the mark roars in my bones.

I slide the pendant over my head, tucking the humming into my clothing, against my breast. It hums against my skin, a steady buzz of mana. Like many bees, a low sound that I turn away from.

“The mages.” I say turning to Cassandra, ignoring the sharp look Varric is giving me. “We should start with them. Their – their hunting ground is in this area, yes?”

“Yes. Our scouts have not made it far in the region, but the fighting mages have set up fortifications in this area.” Cassandra says, “They have been fighting the templars in increasing skirmishes. Fighting over lyrium.”

I wrinkle my nose as I gesture for Cassandra to lead the way. I have seen lyrium, I have never tasted it.

The Dalish have no need for lyrium.

 _You make do with what you have_.

“You know,” Varric begins and I run my thumb over the mark on my palm, “I’ve seen Keeper magic.”

When? Ah – of course. The First in his book.

Merrill of Sabrae.

Another infamous name.

I swallow around the words. They rest like heavy dry embers on the back of my tongue, burrs and ash and crumbled things.

“And that thing you did back there? Magic fire? Pretty, but not Keeper magic.”

“Keeper magic is different depending on where you learn. Isn’t it the same with shems in circles?” I reply, heart beating fast in my chest. Varric said so himself. I am not a good liar.

I should tell a story.

The wolf’s shadow draws too close to him, and I do not know where those eyes focus.

The First of a Clan draws, the Keeper holds -

I am neither. Not really. I am me. I am _me_.

I am _him_.

I am _we._

“Besides, Keeper magic doesn’t really come into play in battles.” It isn’t meant for fighting. It can be used in that way, certainly – and I have used it to trip shemlen in the night and bank their fires and curdle their rations – but it isn’t truly designed to fight. It is designed for survival. It is designed for _communion_.

“Funny. Daisy used it to throw rocks at people all the time.” Varric replies. “Almost got clipped in the head, once.”

“Are you sure she didn’t do it on purpose?” Cassandra snorts.

“I’m hurt, Seeker.” Varric says to her, eyes on me. Curious. Seeing. _Clever and knowing_.

She has to reevaluate her opinion of him. Dangerous. Ally or not, who’s side is he on? His own? The Inquisitions? The Chantry’s? _Where do you lay your arms, Varric of house Tethras_? Where do your colors lie?

What do your colors lie?

Why do your colors lie?

“It can be used as such. I have never used it to do so.” I reply. I am not battle mage. I do not follow the _Dirth’ena Enasalin_. I am not of the _vir’enasalin_.

“The thing about that,” Varric continues, “Is that she told me that the Keeper magic can only use what’s already around you. Present. It works with nature. That fire didn’t look natural. Or that torch.”

I swallow, licking dry lips.

Clever, clever _durgen’len._ And how does she explain this one?

“Then she was wrong.” I reply. “We of the Dalish are fragmented. Sometimes it takes time for information to travel. Perhaps she had not stayed with her clan long enough to learn? She was originally Ferelden, was she not? The Dalish of Ferelden’s magic tends to be a lot more healing oriented.”

Varric hums, and the subject drops. I watch the wolf slip around us, a shadow that slides over stone and surface. His feet make no sounds. But his magic pulses with his breath.

When he speaks, it sounds as if he is behind me, words whispering right into my ear. Delicate.

Hahren and god, _my god_.

“I sense frost magics.”

“Mages.” Cassandra says, at the same time as the wolf blinks out of sight. “Ahead. Be careful – there may be traps.”

I tentatively cast my mana out as I pull my staff off my back. I sense no glyphs, no wards. No – one.

We round the corner and find large, glittering structures of ice. I can hear the sighing _crack_ of them as they melt in the light. Beyond it is a cave’s mouth, covered in a large barrier. It glows -

“Tuned to fire. It is a barrier of ice.” The wolf says, I tilt my head in his direction, eyes still focused on the scene in front of me. Cassandra crouches low among toppled trees, smelling of ash. Varric and I hide a few paces away. The mages have not yet seen us. “The gem on your staff. It is tuned to lightning, is it not?”

It is. My own staff had been lost in the blast at the conclave. I am borrowing one – clumsy in my hands, but the wood is worn and loved, and the focus at the end whispers with potential. Storms.

“Do you still feel unprepared to cast fire?”

I dip my chin towards my chest.

The wolf sighs. “Switch the focus gem of the staff out. You took a mana focus inclined towards fire off one of the fallen mages at the Crossroads. Quickly.”

I fumble, the staff unweildly in my hands when I am not moving, unwrapping the crackling gem at the top of the staff and fishing for the gently humming, dormant, one in my pack.

“Take out the ones in front, and I can get you passed the barrier.” I tell Varric.

“One path for the lady, coming up.”

If the crafter of my clan could see me now, I mourn as I coax and pry the gem off the staff, he would have my hide.

Staffs are hard to make when you don’t have access to the materials that would work well to channel mana. In theory you could channel mana through anything. In practice, you want the best – the most stable materials – for your spell work.

The staff I lost was a present. Ironbark crafted by the head crafter. I spent months pouring mana into the braids of leather and chord – shot through with dried vines and roots – that I used to tie the one lightning attuned crystal my clan had to the head of it. Hours of practice, hours of using it as a cane, using it as a part of my own body, wearing the grip smooth, breaking the leather into velvet, molding to my palms and fingers until my flesh matched its surface. Soaked in my mana, it is a part of me, lost and gone forever. Faded, never forgotten. A missing limb that does not ache so much as it sighs in remembrance.

The one I hold now – it probably belongs to a dead shem. There are no other mages in this Inquisition that I have met. Just myself. It was probably left behind in Haven by one of the mages who went to the Conclave.

It is a dead man’s staff.

I was fortunate that it was lightning.

Staffs are such intimate things. At least, for the Dalish they are. Shems have them in shops and pass them out like candy on feast days.

Still. They are things to be cherished. The wood on this one is worn, the end blunt with use and knocking against the earth. The grooves in it are meant for larger, broader hands – a man’s, I can tell from the way my fingers slide – and the polish is weather beaten-worn.

It takes me time to nudge, pry, coax, and cajole the lightning focus out of the staff, wincing because this is such a _shit job_. More damaging than good. This staff will never be the same again.

I quickly slide the flame gem in, pushing a bit with my mana to bring it to life faster. For a moment it burns hot under my touch before I release it, resisting the urge to bring my fingers to my mouth.

Disrupted and disturbed.

I can feel the mana in the staff – already so foreign – shift and change, unfocusing and confused.

I push my mana through the staff, gently coaxing it into accepting the gem, the wood and metal protesting even as I clamp them tight around the foreign object. I slip the lightning focus into my pack, looking up to see that Cassandra and Varric have already dealt with most of the mages outside.

Deep breaths, calm. Focus.

It can’t be that different from fighting normal shems, can it?

She has never fought mages before. Not groups of mages, at least. She did well against one or two, isolated. But here – a group of them, all against her? Difficult.

It can’t be that hard.

The mages are casting beyond the barrier, but the spells are weakened, dampened. And I’m not fool enough to think we can fight them through the thing.

Cassandra adjusts her shield, and nods at me – ready. There’s the soft mechanical sounds of Varric reloading Bianca. Ready.

It is not a fire spell, but I still hesitate as I swing the staff – it’s the same motions. The exact same motions, but it produces flame instead of electricity – not a spell, but a reformation of my mana through the staff into the physical force of the elements – and it is _strange._ Peculiar.

As if the mark on my hand and the fact I am fighting alongside a shemlen warrior of the Chantry and a dwarf story teller isn’t odd enough.

I feel apart from myself, apart from my mana – yet not apart, we are parts, we are a part – as it leaves, a plume of yellow-egg-yolk-flame round and oblong and streaming like an eye as it strikes against the barrier.

One. Two. Three.

Four strikes of golden molten flame and it comes down.

And the mages come _out_.

It’s strange, like looking into a distorted mirror. They’re so close I can watch their casting as I throw a new barrier up around Cassandra. The magic of shemlens. The movements are different. The way they cast – the spells themselves are different.

Formulaic and – sharp. War-born.

I am hesitance and confusion. I am uncertainty.

I am new. I am opening my eyes that were not closed, but veiled.

I am more awake than anyone here.

The shemlen broadcast, do they realize that? They broadcast their spells. Every move is formulated, everything is – is static. Jerky. Like going through steps. Stiff.

They do not dance with their mana.

Even with this staff – impersonal and mismatched – I do not move as they do. My spells are not as theirs.

I can see them coming. I can feel their mana broadcasting to me. But it – it isn’t enough to see. I have to move fast enough, cast fast enough to counter. To defend.

But it is so _easy_ when they give it all away -

As soon as I learn how one of them casts the spell, I know how the rest of them will do it. This close, I can _see the patterns_. Fools. Never let your enemy see. Never have a pattern.

No two spells should ever look the same. Even if _they are the same_.

Her lip curls up in distaste, and the fear is there, but it melts away as she focuses. No longer afraid. Not of being outmatched. Mages trained for years with the books and knowledge she has been deprived of, resources she has never seen, never had.

She does not fear that. Not any longer.

_Children, babied, sheltered, cloistered._

Her magic sings, a warbling song that will _build_. Her focus is awe inspiring.

He watches with pride as she holds her ground. Unsteady and unversed, but better. Getting there.

They all cast frost the same, it is easy to slide my mana in and tweak it. I cannot break their spells – I do not think I will ever be strong enough for such a thing – but I can make them weaker. I slip my mana in – they are defenseless! Did no one ever teach them to guard their mana? _It’s perfectly tied to the Fade._ Still there, singing and bleeding in and out, in and out. Dangers. Dangerous. Demons. What do they even learn in their towers of books and history? My mana slides in, and breaks a line in the spell. A thread, a connection.

And the spell weakens, goes awry, slows.

It is harder to call lightning when I am focused on slowing the spells, but I can still do it. And it is harder still, to aim when Cassandra blocks most of the view of the cave’s entrance. But I can see flashes from spell work, from the stray pieces of lightning I do get in. Flashes of faces in the dark. I can hear echoes. Feel the magic.

I can feel them out.

Twang, twang, the heartbeat of bolts. Snarl, the push of a shield.

Flash, the baring of teeth.

Red eyes in the dark. The wolf watches. Judge me worthy. I will be. You are already. More than you know.

“There will be more elsewhere. But this was their stronghold.” Cassandra says when the last mage falls. I should feel sorry. They were oppressed and hurt and afraid. I am not sorry.

“Now to clear out the other half of this valley.” Varric says, nudging a body over onto its back with his boot. His face is grim.

They are so young.

I gently place my staff against the cave wall and move to pry one that sings of frost out of one of the dead mage’s hands. This frost was the one I could see from outside. It is strong. The mana hums against mine before I even touch it. It is the finest staff I have ever seen.

It cracks with frost – odd. Strange. It wakes to my touch. I almost drop it in surprise.

It _sings to me_.

She drops the staff, fingers barely brushing it before she releases it.

“Nice staff?” Varric asks. “Looks way above anyone’s pay grade, here.”

“I don’t think it belonged to him.” She says, frowning and slowly curling her fingers around the staff once more. She hefts the weight of it, eyes tracking the head of the staff. Wisps of frost trail in the air after the rounded head. The metal of it gleams like liquid in the dim light.

The mana around it tastes cool. Old. At least half a decade, perhaps a score old. Good mana, trapped within the staff. Seeking a good user.

“Take it.” The wolf says, “It will serve you well. I sense enchantments on it. It will help increase the power of your spells. And it should help you defend against them, as well. You can feel it in the mana, yes?”

She looks back towards the older staff set against the wall, mouth pressing into a thin line.

“Perhaps we can sell this one.” She says, turning towards the Seeker. The woman shrugs her shoulders.

“If it is a good staff I say you should keep it. You need to be well armed, and Haven is not in the position to do that properly, yet.” Her narrow lips twitch upwards, “And I would feel more comfortable if I knew you had a decent weapon rather than random left-overs of what happened to be left behind.”

Lavellan blinks, eyes flicking – glittering in the low light – from the Seeker to the staff.

“My thanks. I shall take the best care of it as I know how.” She says, dipping her head down. “Then – one half of the problem down, the other to go?”

“Lead on, Herald.” Varric says, giving a short bow towards the cave’s mouth. “And let’s perform a minor miracle.”


	9. The Hinterlands: Templars and Farms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dalish, the mage, the woman – hunting the shemlen, the Templar, the man.

On the way to finding the templars, I feel the pull of a rift. It’s like a tug of thread, stray and unraveling, pulling me apart. Parts of me. Parts that are not me. Not a song, but maybe the drumming of fingers that becomes. Became the song?

The march aches, bone and blood deep, like a scab being pulled and picked at, but deeper. A scab inside of me, a scar deep within my mana.

I think of grafting trees.

My fingers curl around the cool weight of my new staff – the mana in it is old, not – it is not old like the wolf’s mana. It is not even old like some of the artifacts the Keepers exchanged with each other whenever we crossed paths with another clan. But it is older than I am, perhaps older than the man who wielded it before me.

The cool touch of ice is calming. Unfamiliar but willing to bend with me.

I feel-hear the rift before I see it, and wisps of green mana escape my clenched palm, like steam – drifting in an invisible wind towards the rift.

Cassandra stops beside me, her gloved hand just touching my elbow.

“Are you ready?”

I wonder if it will hurt. Varric looks at me with concern and I nod.

More mana, more magic. Making me more than I am.

I am a cup that is slowly filling.

Surface tension.

“Let’s go.” The staff’s metal head glitters with hoarfrost as we grow closer, the rift unspools, a whispering song, and demons emerge from the Fade. Terror demons that toss their heads back and scream.

“Disrupt the rift.” Varric says, “The Seeker and I got this covered.”

I run towards the rift, dodging around the demon’s reach as Cassandra slides into my place, snarling her challenge with the open and push of her shoulders and glint of her teeth.

But terror demons are tricky and not as easily fooled as wisps.

I skid, almost falling when the ground beneath me tingles with mana – distorted and wrong – and the demon jumps out from underneath me. I fall, arms curling over my head as it throws its head back and _screams_. The sound rakes over my skull and locks my spine.

My barrier slows the first swipe of claws enough for me to roll to safety – the smell of demons is _rancid_. The smell of sour and stale sweat, hot breath in darkness – fear -

I throw my hand out, the wolf’s magic rushing through my veins, from the core of me, and burst into the world. A thin, deceptively beautiful looking ribbon of pure mana that catches the stray threads of the rift and sucks it in.

The first contact is jarring and I dig my heels into the ground.

She sets her jaw, tucking her grimace away – hand around her staff growing white-knuckled as she pulls. Pulls and swallows and attempts to surround. A thin bubble of her own mana, attempting to contain a confused ocean of his own.

He tries to stabilize it – but he is weak, weakened, weakening. His own mana does not recognize him.

His lip curls as he tries to force it into subjugation, to recognize him – his mana is so young. Whole. Bright. Chaotic with its confusion. Searching for its source, searching for him and finding _her_ instead. This shem’vhen who bears the marks of a slave but carries part of him in her palm, woven through the branches of her mana and rooted in her magical core.

His mana floods through those channels, destroying and reshaping as it goes. But it is only a trickle that returns to his own physical body – far, far from here. Not enough. Not enough to wake, not enough to change anything.

If he would.

No.

I would not change things. I did what I must. We would not have been better if I stood idle.

Would we?

The demons pull at the edges of my mind, but I am closed. Tight, whole unto myself. I do not pull from the Fade, I am sealed. I am a wax sealed pot, closed and perfect, no cracks, no openings. Not like the strange shemlen mages.

So open. So _vulnerable_.

I shudder.

No wonder the shemlen fear abominations so much. There must be so many if they let themselves be open like that.

I shiver and yank – the rift temporarily seals and I hear Cassandra suck in a steady breath, readying herself for the second wave. I glance at Varric, who’s resetting Bianca, eyeing the spots where the mana builds.

What next? More terror demons? Wisps? _Pride_?

More terror demons – probably drawing on how anxious we are, and a single wisp. I almost feel guilty when I destroy it, first. It is the easiest target, the weakest. But I think of the little heartbeat kisses that the wolf guided into my palms and I wonder if I just killed one of them.

I wonder if it was the wisp I held in the Fade.

The rift seals with a rush of silence and I stagger back, wobbling as I blink away the sparks of energy that burst in my vision as the mana attempts to settle with in me. Trapped.

I am a vessel, sealed and perfect – without flaw. I am a vessel. I am a container. I am a Keeper.

I will hold.

My breath leaves me in a low gush as I close my eyes and focus.

“You alright, kiddo?” Varric says, close to my side. His hand is wide and heavy when he touches my arm. “Need a break?”

“No. I’m – I’m just a little off, is all.” I reply. The sooner the templars are dealt with, the better.

I fear the templars more than I fear demons.

“It just needs a moment to settle.” I say, flexing my hand, cradling it close to my chest. The bones ache, as if I was struck by something heavy. I shake my hand out, a tremor that makes me wince as the mana curls tight around my bones. Like my arm is asleep. But not quite pins and needles. No.

Cassandra watches me as I stoop to pick through the demonic ichor left behind, fingers closing around a dimly glowing essence of spirit. The shard feels like ceramic between my fingers, and it tingles like the amulet of power still tucked in my clothes.

“The templars.” I say.

“Are you certain?”

“The sooner the better.”

“It would not help to rush into it.” Cassandra says, and I grasp her hand as she pulls me up.

“I can do it.” I reply. I wonder where the wolf is. I search my mind, casting out my mana for echoes of him. Nothing. I wonder how to call him.

I could use the advice.

I have never fought templars head on before. Not by myself. I am the only mage.

“Do you have any advice?” I ask Cassandra, “For fighting templars?”

Cassandra frowns, looking into the distance as she thinks. “They will be weak.”

I snort.

“Might want to clarify, Seeker. Big guys in shiny armor waving around giant swords? Doesn’t seem very weak.” Varric says, sharing a grin with me.

Cassandra rolls her eyes. “I mean that they will be weakened. They would have had trouble with getting lyrium. It is part of why fighting in this area is so bad. They fight with the mages for lyrium. Their withdrawal will make them – reckless. Dangerous if they get close, but unlikely to be able to do much with their templar abilities. They will be obvious. I do not know what else to tell you. I know what I would tell you if you were a soldier. I would tell you to go in quick and from the sides because they will be easily confused, and the armor of a templar is mainly designed for a frontal assault.”

“I can aim from the sides.” I say.

“And I’m getting pretty good at killing templars, if I do say so myself.” Varric says, “Bianca and I got plenty of practice with that back at Kirkwall.”

“My spells – will they do anything?” I have heard that templars are unaffected by magic. Aside from hitting them with my staff, I don’t know what else to do.

“Yes.” Cassandra replies. “Templars are immune to magic cast upon themselves. But they will still suffer from any magic cast around them. Cast at the ground or air around them and they will still feel it. It may be dampened, but it will still affect them. I do not think they would be able to silence you.”

I shiver.

“They need a constant supply of lyrium to maintain their ability to silence mages.” She says, perhaps sensing some of my fear. Her voice does not soften but she does turn to fully face me. The eye on her breast bold and flecked with ichor and blood. “And they would need to be close to you. Stay back, stay away, let the dwarf and I go first. Cast near them and try not to draw attention to yourself.”

I’ve spent my entire life trying not to draw attention to myself.

I nod.

She looks into me before nodding back, turning on her heel.

“Aside from that there is nothing else I can tell you. I don’t make it a habit to fight templars, either.”

Unlike the mages, the templars have taken over a large stretch of land. Burned shells of homes, crumbled stone walls, and fire everywhere as the templars roam in patrols.

My stomach clenches as I try to figure out where to stand downwind of the ash.

I hide behind half-burned branches as Cassandra and Varric creep ahead of me. I watch Varric slip into the shadows, invisible except for the barest glimpses of his features in certain lights. It is amazing how he disappears from view like that.

Cassandra tucks her body behind her shield as she slowly draws closer to one of the templars, before striking – taking the patrol bys surprise as she lunges forward and slams the man into a rock, the loud clang of their armor startling a cacophony of cries.

Varric’s crossbow aims true and I focus on throwing out barriers, small spells from where I am hidden. Waiting for them all to turn towards Cassandra or Varric, giving me their backs.

My chance comes and I stand, clambering over rock – toes and palms gritty with dirt and ash as I call lightning.

It is the flashiest element, compared to slow and steady ice and furious flickering fire. It’s exotic, hard to tame. It is not the element of preference for many mages.

It is _my_ element.

I draw the lines for the storm, careful not to accidentally strike Cassandra or Varric – because once the lightning is out of my grasp it spreads. Like how a flame’s embers catch in the wind and how frost spreads like a wave, lightning jumps. Excited and exacting, wanting to continue its path until the very unseen and unknown end.

It jumps without looking because it _must_.

That is how we make our way through the templar patrols. Slowly as the sun glares down at us, the Breach a mouth that groans opposite.

We clear out the area, the building – a line of us. Cassandra ahead as she holds the charge and Varric behind her as he forces the templars back to her with well aimed shots. And then me far in the back casting barriers that grow steadier and steadier, until it is easy to cast my hand and mana out and hold a decent sphere around them. My area of concentration is getting wider.

The hand with the mark of the wolf still trembles, aches, though.

Unsettled.

Static cracks along my fingers and I can feel it rattling the beads in my hair. My skin is alive and buzzing.

I feel almost as if I am floating – the power pushing through me, cycling like a windstorm – as we make our way to the templar’s stronghold near the ruined bridge.

The quarters for fighting here are tight. They have barricaded themselves in well. I can see glittering metal through slots meant for arrows. There will be no element of surprise this time. There is only one entrance.

My hand flexes around the staff. The wolf’s mana stirs within me, awareness, wakefulness.

I see the flicker of him in the corner of my eye, the brush of his mana against my own. A greeting and a word of caution at once.

As we proceed forward, I wonder how well I will learn to know the wolf, or how well I will think I know him by the time this is over. I notice his absences and I can feel meaning behind the touch of his mana. It took me ages to understand that with the Keeper and the Second of my own clan.

Years of training to understand the Second’s touch of _good morning_ from the Keeper’s touch of _are you well?_ Years to understand the prickle of the Keeper’s annoyance and to separate it from the Second’s impatience.

And already I can tell that he is saying _I am back, tread carefully, I will observe, you do well_ from a single brush.

How deep does he go within me?

It takes effort to try and pull my mana away from hers. Her own mana is weakly trying to absorb it, convert it. But there is too much and it takes time – time she does not have with her concentration frayed in battle. She needs sleep, rest, and even then she would only convert a small fraction.

If my mana was filtering into her slowly – a breath as it had been with our sister -

No. Even if it was slowly, she would not have the time. She would never have the time.

I alone hold the time. Eternal. Unending. Agonizing time.

It is harder to fall back, I have to go in after them. I need to see to target my spells, after all – and the set up of their barricade is clever. Twists and curves that shoot off from the main entrance that hide them from my view but leave me exposed to theirs. I follow, heart beating hard against my chest as I try and figure out a safe place to cast – somewhere I can hide -

There is nowhere. In order to cast I must see. And if I can see, I can be seen.

I swear under my breath as I throw myself to the side, out of the way of an arrow and straight into the path of two charging templars.

I can feel the prickle of the song of lyrium in them. Faint, so very faint – but enough to make me _remember_.

Darkness. Glow-flies. Hot air, cool water. Round stones, heavy and not in my small palm. He looks at me and smiles, presses his lips to my cheek. My love, my friend, my -

Crash in the underbrush. Turn and spin, our eyes see well in the darkness. Steel.

Run, run, run – where are you going rabbits?

The brush of a hand at the nape of my neck and I scream, a screech that echoes and alerts. A hawk’s cry.

Recoil and a curse.

Our feet pound the earth and we must run parallel to camp. Every lesson taught, do not lead to the hearth. Lead away. Is he behind me? Did I leave him? Do not be lost. I cannot lose you. Always, we promise, as our fingers curl together and sway. We are but children, and I _love you -_

I suck in a breath and cast a barrier around myself – the clear wash of mana like a film of soap that creates a gentle glowing haze between me and the templars. Cassandra is busy on the other side of the encampment, Varric is dispatching the archers -

It is me. It is him. It is us.

 _You have nothing to fear_. The wolf’s voice echoes in my head. I see him across the way. A black shadow that turns into a man. He nods at me, and I cannot read his face other than to know -

I shall not fear.

Cast like frost, remember, displacement -

Surface tension. I am a vessel. I am complete and whole and unbreakable. Contained. Containing -

I gather my mana and prepare to move – I cast. I push. And I feel the rush of wind as I throw myself forward, the shouts of surprise as I move _through_ and through and away, nearly crashing into the rock wall. I turn, wobbling and spinning on my heel – hand shooting out to steady myself.

The laughter builds up in my throat.

The Fade Step.

 _I escaped_.

He was right.

I do not have to be afraid.

Her teeth flash with lightning – amazing. She has progressed quickly. She has only practiced the Fade Step once or twice, three times at most since he has taught her the theory behind it. And now, her first try in the middle of battle – she steps clear across the area.

He hears her laugh – hears her despite being so far away, all other sounds are drowned out compared to her. Everything sounds muted. And her breathless laugh that she chokes out, quiet and bitten through tense jaw and lips, is beautiful. It is the sort of laugh he has heard on the lips of many before her.

It is the laugh of someone understanding, breaking free and away and seeing where they came from for the first time. It is the sound of someone raising their hands free of their shackles for the first time, seeing the light and moving on their own volition.

The wolf watches and watches the shaking wobble of her lips as the smile forces its way onto her face -

 _I can run_. _I can run and they couldn’t touch me. They couldn’t touch me_.

The rest of the battle passes in a giddy haze – I am hyperaware and dull at the same time. I can hear the sounds of metal and wood and the harsh breathing that rattles and echoes inside of their helmets. I can hear Varric and Cassandra. But I see the glint of light off the edge of a sword. I hear the rush of the water from the wide stream. I feel the warm and hard packed dirt underneath my feet.

Blood spills out of the grooves between armor, where Varric’s clever bolts pick out weak points. The clang of metal rings out harsh when Cassandra rams against templar shields with heavy sounding thuds.

But I see snippets of the sky, so blue it makes my eyes water – vivid when I trace lightning with my mana. I watch the spells form. Dazed. It can’t take more than a few minutes for everything to clear up, for it all to be over. It seems so much longer, slower – beautiful, in my head. I feel-see-taste the lingering lightning in the air, waiting for me, for _me_ – and I reach out with my mana, catching each piece of the storm and dragging, like a net in water. A fishing line. And they fall together, beads on a string – click, click, click, the beads in my hair, each one earned diligently and crafted, gifts and rewards – into bright searing laughs.

It is over. Silence.

I stagger back, leaning against warm stone as I slide to the ground, panting.

Cassandra comes to kneel next to me, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” My mouth feels numb.

Varric is checking bodies for notes, gold, anything – there are also chests full of supplies.

My hands shake.

I have never used so much mana before, and I’ve never fought so many people before. So many templars. It feels different, somehow. I’ve killed shems – bandits, mercenaries, people in twos and threes. People who’ve caused me and my clan harm first. People who have chased me, people who’ve come to the borders of our camps with knives and fire and swords and arrows. People I’ve helped drive away with clever tricks in the dark.

That is nothing like this.

The sun burns high and bright and we charged straight through. No hiding. We hunted them.

We hunted _them_.

 _I_ hunted them.

The Dalish, the mage, the woman – hunting the shemlen, the Templar, the man.

The laughter bursts from my mouth before I can stop it and Varric raises his eyebrow at me as I shake my head.

I walk out of the templar’s encampment on shaking legs. Power runs through me in waves and streams. Heavy and light in turns.

“The Crossroads should be safe, for now.” Cassandra says as we survey the burnt land. “Hopefully this allows for supplies to get through.”

“The farm is near here, isn’t it?” I ask, “The one the scouts were trying to get to – for mounts?”

“Yes.” Cassandra nods her head in the direction of a steep hill - “They were unable to get through because of the fighting between the Templars and mages, so we are not certain if the farm is safe or not.”

“We should go look.” I say turning to make my way over the ruined bridge.

“Or we could go back to Haven and check up on things there.” Varric suggests, “You’re looking a little pale.”

“Just tired.” I reply. I can walk it off. The wolf’s mana is slowly being converted into my own and my own mana stores will slowly build up in time. Adrenaline is still making me hyperaware. I’ll be fine. “We came here for horses, let’s get them.”

I just want it all over with. I feel like I am powerful. Knocking things down one at a time, things I have never done before.

I feel powerful. Swelling and bursting out of myself as the mana inside of my cycles and storms and churns and changes. I am pushed, buoyed up on the swell and swung low with the receding of the tide, and brought back up once more. Motion. I am free and I am caught. I am changed. Changing.

Shaking like a newborn, and everything is so damned _new_ I think part of me is in love and part of me is slowly fading. Let go. Washed away with every breath as the bones of my left hand ache and groan under the pressure of mana squeezing my veins and nerves. Pinched and binding tight, tense.

I flex my hand and wipe sweat from my brow, lick my dry lips.

“I am not going back up that mountain and then coming back down again for something I can do by climbing that hill.”

“You know what, I like her.” Varric says as I focus on putting one foot in front of the other and dragging my senses down to heel, to this world once more and out of that strange space of light and color and sharp edged leaves and soft shafts of light.

Cassandra snorts, and I hear her fall into step behind me.

Master Dennet is reasonable, and I understand his hesitance to send his horses. He allows us to make camp at the edge of the farms. I feel another rift close by.

Cassandra, Varric and I head up the hills to the North of the farms and seal the rift there. It becomes routine – the fear is there, but that, too, becomes part of the routine. The power inside of me hums. Loud and excited. Growing in on itself.

I shake my arm out, and it hurts. Pain and prickles and needles and hot, hot fire. I swear that I can hear my bones creak, protesting metal and old, old, old wood that refuses to bend like the soft velvet green of spring.

“I’m fine.” I say when I catch Cassandra looking at my arm. “There’s one more rift near here. We should close it.”

“One night of rest won’t hurt.” She says.

“Do you really want to sleep next to an open rift?” I return, blinking at her. I can feel it calling to me. Faintly – stronger, now that there is more mana in the mark. In me. The mana wants to be whole, it wants to be together. It wants to return to its source. It wants the wolf.

I am the closest it will get.

It sings to me. I am sung to.

The song is one I know so deep in my bones, but I do not think I could ever recreate it. It is a song beyond memory and awareness. It just _is_.

Just as the wolf is inside of me, just as I am knotted into the wolf’s mana with my own – tangled and bound –, like the dormant lines of electricity that wait on me on my eyelashes.

Her mouth presses into a thin line, and Varric raises his eyebrow at us after he sends off the messenger bird Dennet lent us to contact the Inquisition forces at the Crossroads for supplies.

She is right. We are all tired. The mana that pools and spins inside of me is – unsettled and refusing to settle. It pushes me and pulls me. Good and bad, a high and a low. I feel powerful. I feel pained.

But I do not want to sleep next to a rip in the Veil. I don’t think anyone would be at ease for that.

“She’s right, Seeker.” Varric says, eyes flicking between us. “A night of rest is probably the thing furthest from anyone’s mind if they have demons as neighbors. Though I do think you should get some rest.” He says, turning to me. “Take a breather. You look like you’re going to faint and there’s not a single suitably charming and handsome guy around to catch you in the middle of it. I suppose the Seeker could – “

“ _Dwarf_.”

My lips curve upwards as I sit, lowering my feet into the clear stream and run my fingers over the thick and almost leathery leaves and petals of spindleweed.  The leaves bend under my touch, almost feeling fake with how glossy they are. I wiggle my toes in the cool water and feel the moist grass underneath my palms.

I close my eyes and feel for the wolf.

I feel his shadow, the lingering whisper of him that raises the hair on my arms and back of my neck, making my flesh goose pimple.

“You push yourself. Can you handle it?” The wolf says, clear and close.

I dip my chin to my chest, feel the sun on my skin and breathe in deep. Cool, crisp air. The sound of grazing animals. Water moving, steady. A waterfall in the distance – the song of the Veil and beyond, within me, without me. My mana sings.

My song. My sound. My magic. Me.

Him. Us. Unnamed newness. Free.

The sound of her heart is slow, sedated, and she looks up through dark lashes – her eyes glint like metal. Like raw, unrefined ores trapped. Glittering, raw, the Fade – Uncut gemstones that call out in the darkness and darken, deepen in the light.

Potential, trapped. Waiting.

She nods, eyes fixed on a distant point as she smiles to nothing, no one. Not me, certainly.

I lay somewhere far from here, and lay across from her and wait. I can feel my own mana – strange and  young and untapped – within her, the thin barrier of space and her own self keeping me apart from myself.

Trapped and free, bound and unleashed upon the world.

The sun lowers in the sky and she eats the meager rations handed to her. Tearing into dried meat and sucking on dry and withered fruit slices, wrinkled and brown. Sticky sweet.

She is far from battle-ready, far from anything like the polished glint of the Seeker and the _durgen’len_ at her side. But she is catching up in leaps and bounds. Truly quick. Shemlen in everything aside from her ears and eyes.

Quickened.

A quickening.

A flutter deep inside, calling to me, my heart, a tug at my chest, my belly. Empty and full. A calling. The stirring of something.

Do not name it.

I can feel the storm inside. And I am so, so very relieved that I can let it loose on the demons. I call lightning to my fingers and clamber up damp soil, dirt between my toes as I try and get close enough to the rift to pull – to create the thread between here and me. It and there.

It is hard because it is so high up, and because there are so many demons.

I raise the restorative potions to my lips many times. I try to their empty bottles away gently to be scavenged. Glass is so precious.

The faint buzz of elfroot – bitter and warm – makes my lips heat and almost numb. Not like rashvine. I toss my last restorative to Varric, who catches it in one large leather-gloved hand, nimble in a way only dwarves can be, as he deftly tosses it over to Cassandra, who uncorks it with her teeth as she holds her shield up against the barrage of wisps and the heat of rage.

I cast barrier after barrier, and call upon frost. I freeze the mana. Holding.

I do not think I have ever used so much mana in my life.

I do not think I have ever used it so well. So violently, before, either.

There is more blood shed by my hands today – in this one day – than perhaps in the past three years of my life. Shed directly by my hand. By my magic.

I almost laugh. It is not my hand. It is not my mana.

It is the wolf’s.

But what am I, then, if not the temporary vessel?

I am becoming he is became we are becomes me.

I stagger from the recoil as I seal the rift, sinking into a crouch before slowly lying back on the sharp incline of the slope. I suck in deep breaths that taste like mana and demons and fire and ice.

I laugh. I close my eyes. I am sung to. I sing. It sang to me.

Safe.


	10. Val Royeaux: The Meeting of the Clerics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Val Royeuax is a different sort of beautiful. The shemlen kind of beautiful, I think.

We leave for the meeting of clerics in Val Royeaux before the mounts Dennet sent us can make it to Haven. Instead we use the coursers he sent us off with along with the draft horses that the Inquisition has been making do with.

The canter and trot beneath me is unusual. Strange. Different. I think that the humans think I do not know how to ride.

They would be correct.

Riding a horse is nothing like riding a hart or a halla. Nothing at all.

I can understand why shems like their horses. They’re small. No antlers. It widens the field of vision, makes it easier to maneuver. But I have learned to move with those antlers all my life, and find myself pulling too hard – to compensate for a swinging weight that is not there. I ask for a turn too soon, and I expect too much from these horses of fields and plains.

Halla and harts know how to pick their way over uneven ground – silent and graceful, when a single broken twig can signal danger. They are large, loud things. I know.

A stag’s trumpeting bellow is one of the most fierce and beautiful things I will ever love, lose, long, linger, listen for. And the sweet blush of a halla’s kiss is something imprinted on the back of my eyelids like satin-velvet leaves.

They pick their way over the ground, almost dainty. And they know without you telling them anything at all. Their heads move silent, regal, steady -

The weight of a crown is a heavy thing. A dignified thing. Their necks never bend under it. Only raise ever higher.

Antlers like branches, reaching for the great welkin like fingers and hands, lightning in reverse. Grounded lightning. Fulgurite.

Horses are different. They are rougher. Heads dipping, bodies undulating. Moving waves. Beautiful, but waiting. Broken in – domesticated in ways we would never consider our halla and harts. Or any other animal.

The Dalish do not keep _pets_.

The horse underneath me is a Ferelden Forder, which I am told is a fine breed. A common breed that brings pride to everyone in Ferelden because of how versatile they are. Even they, the stable master tells me as I struggle to understand the straps of leather and metal that make the shem saddles, have a bit of that dog lord spirit in them.

Cassandra rides a deep black horse – powerful with a feathery looking mane. A warhorse, a Friesian she says. It is hers, brought with her to the Conclave. A gift from the previous Divine.

Before we left, the Commander saw us off – rode part of the way with us. His was also a deep black horse. It had a powerful chest, huge. I suppose it must be to carry him. He wears more armor than Cassandra does. A Warlander, I was told. Given to him when he signed on as Commander.

“I do not take him out as often as I should.” The Commander tells me, reigns easy in his hands. The leather in my own is heavy and clumsy, large – not meant for my hands. My fingers. The leather is broken and velvet in my palms – sweat damp. Nerves.

Templar. The song in him is so quiet. Easy to forget if I do not look. So I _look_. I have killed Templars in the Hinterlands. I have killed Templars.

I will kill Templars.

“He is too fine.” The Commander says, the dark-velvet ear of the destier flicks back – he knows. I offer a small smile. A touch on the corner of my mouth and the Commander’s eyes are warm, kind, person-not-weapon. _Unnerving_.

The horse underneath me is a wave, the horses are waves. They ripple like water and I am not used to it.

The trot and gait of a hart or halla is not smooth, either. But it does not undulate like this. It is brisker, somehow. Different. Soothing. Something I know in my heart and in my bones.

They do not need me to lead, either. They know, because they feel me. Because I cling to them with thigh and whisper, my hands dig into the thick and heavy pelts around their shoulders and they know because they want to live and I want to live and we are spirits, one, together.

Different, here, different, now.

Not bad. Just different.

I understand why the shemlen like their horses so much.

I imagine a wave of horses, undulating like oceans – glittering with the silver fish of plate mail above them as they stream black-cream-brown-white foam behind them. Thundering.

Beautiful.

Val Royeuax is a different sort of beautiful. The shemlen kind of beautiful, I think.

It is beautiful in strange, whimsical ways. Statues everywhere, gold, banners, cloth flung between buildings, fruit trees – trimmed? – growing out of plots of grass, stone everywhere.

And gold.

 _So much gold_. It gleams.

It glitters. It hurts my eyes. Even the stone walkway – so white and clean it practically throws light into the eyes – glitters.

A woman screams as we approach and runs away – mask over face, and even in this kind of heat, buttoned up so that only her nose and her thin hands show out of a strange monstrosity of ruffles and lace and feathers. I stare as she hobbles away, catch a sight of her feet. I wince.

Shoes, heeled and closed, small. It must hurt her to even stand.

I see nothing but pain in everything here.

Where did the stone come from? And these statues of Andraste and Maferath – where is Shartan? What of him? What of the elven blood that helped raise this woman and her flaming sword above Tevinter? What of the elven blood that washed these streets? Washes it?

They think they are so clean. They think I am the filthy one, the savage.

They know _nothing_.

I dig my nails into my palms and breathe air that smells nothing like air. They know nothing. They will _never_ know.

They are _blind_.

She is disgusted with everything she sees. There is awe and there is a certain type of grudging respect. But there is disgust, a well.

How would she react to know that this is what Arlathlan was like? To know that the lost kingdom of the elves was once like this? Better? Gilded, gold, and full of glory. Arlathan soared above all things. Spires of magic, the trees and stones woven with sheets of metal and panes of glass. Mosaics and fountains, gates and gilded panels.

How would she react to know that this beauty is only a fraction compared to what our lost kingdom was?

She would not believe.

To look upon it, and _know_ -

 _Blinded_.

Brilliance of the sun shining slow and steady.

I know that I’m going to hate this before I even see them. I can hear the shemlen crowd from behind the giant tower in the middle of the circle.

I turn to Cassandra, her eyes meet mine. Steady on. I turn to Varric, he smiles, nods me forward.

I breathe in deep.

The wolf is a wolf and his eyes glitter in the shadows of the tower. I think he smiles. I do not know.

I cannot see in the darkness cast by the sun and the gleaming, glittering _everything_.

It’s just not natural.

Elves can see in the darkness of the moon and no-moon. When it is just us and the glow of deep mushrooms and glitter-silver of metal and water. We see just fine, then. Safe and away from this gold, this stone, this carefully maintained splash of color-sound-smells.

There is a crowd of shemlen around a stage. A woman in the Chantry’s clothing stands upon it. She speaks. I know, even as I push through the crowd, Cassandra at my side.

I know.

The knowledge settles hot and warm, comfortable in me.

They do not like me. They do not think I am the Herald of Andraste. They do not think I am touched by their Maker.

Good.

It curls in me. Pleasant. Freeing. A part of myself that I hold gentle. Cupped in the palms of my bones, lulled placid and safe with the rock of my mana and my blood. Kept safe by the splay of mana-blood-flesh- _pride_ across my face and throat and body.

This is my body. This is my blood.

 _Not your Maker’s_.

He does not make me.

My _gods_ make me. _My faith_ makes me.

Fen’harel’s jaw opens and closes in my hand.

“People of Val Royeaux, together we mourn our Divine. Her naive and beautiful heart silenced by treachery. You wonder what will become of her murderer. Well, wonder no more! Behold the so-called Herald of Andraste! Claiming to rise where our beloved fell. We say this is a _false prophet!_ The maker would send no elf in our hour of need!”

Time slows as I feel my skin tighten. Angry and burning, static and heat over my face and neck. To be called out, to be slighted in front of so many shems – alone -

“This is your choice.” The wolf says. I turn as I feel the mana wash over me, through me. Drawing me inward. Thought and dream moves faster than time and the rotation of the stars. The wolf sits next to me, eyes fixed on the angry woman who stares her nose down at us, sneer fixed on her lips.

I turn from him to look at Cassandra at my other side. There is pain in her face. She is a woman of such strong faith. I think it is admirable, even if she has faith in things that have ground my ancestors under their heel.

“I am touched by a god, but not their god.” I say, as I trace her face with my eyes. She is bread, broken and feeding and filling. She is strong and steady. A constant across cultures. Faith. Healing. Love.

Knuckles and bread and flour and fire. Her kneaded back that she cuts pieces off to feed those under her chantry’s eye.

“They do not know that. You could use this.”

“And when they find out it was a lie I will burn with bleeding ears.” Am I a coward?

“And how would they know the difference?” The wolf asks, “You do not even know. I do not know. All they know is what they see.”

“They do not see the whole picture.”

“And you do?”

“I see you.” I turn to him. Blackness like absence. Three red eyes in profile. Focused far away from me and here and her and them and this. Far flung future and foreseeable past.

His ear flicks in my direction, and his laugh is low and uncomfortable and familiar, uncertain.

“Do you, _da’len_? Do you _see_?” He tilts his head towards me, “To claim this title offers you protection. It is a rallying call. Unity. It will afford you more open pathways, less resistance. It would be easier to grow your Inquisition. And even those who do not believe would hesitate. Doubt is your greatest weapon.”

“But it is a _lie.”_ She says, hands curling at her sides. Voice cracking. “It’s not real. Their Maker isn’t _real_. It’s _you_. It’s our gods. That is real. And I know it.”

“They do not. And even if they did – would they care? Would they call us demons instead? The Forgotten Ones were gods, too.”

Her hands open and close, open and close at her sides. Wild in her eyes as she breathes, nose flared, shoulders tight. Her lips, pale and narrow, slide over exposed teeth.

Stuck and frozen. Trapped. Held.

I watch her. The urge to run, to tuck herself down and curve over the soft flesh of her belly, tuck her head into her hands flickers over her face.

She is lightning and storms.

She cuts through things. Not like fire that runs rampant – overpowering. Not even like water that seeks the path of least resistance. Each is powerful and good in their own way. Tried and true ways of things. Flame controls, it drives, it is aggressive and passionate in one. It inspires. Water is slower, insidious. It eases into cracks and widens them. A slower path capable of many feats.

Lightning is a dangerous path. It leaps. It jumps. It explodes. It chases. It is a path that does not think, it is a path that reacts. Grabbing and reaching for everything in reach and quickly choosing the one that carries forward first, the one that carries farthest at the moment.

It is a path of desperation, survival, and _necessity_.

It is a hard path. Lightning never knows if it will survive without guidance. The channels aren’t always there – there isn’t always enough to carry from one to the other, and the branch ends. Burning bright and fast, afterimages that fade. A crack and a flash.

I watch as she struggles to find a way out, any way out.

“If I say yes it is a lie. And I am no longer me.” She says, body bound like a stag that wants to run, buck, thrash. Her mana surges within her. Cresting. The height of a wave.

“Who are you to begin with? Did you know?”

Falling, descending, folding in on itself. A circle of blue glass.

“If you say no, then you lose any who would believe. You freely discard any power that the name of this Chantry gives you, their Andraste and Maker. You take away hope. You lose your shield. That mark on your hand protects you in Andraste’s name.”

“But it is _yours_.”

“What proof do you have? I sleep far away, unknown to these shemlen and the durgen’len and even your _Dalish_.” She struggles. The wave collapses on itself. Swallowing its own glass, its foam and energy.

The trail ends.

“You have a choice to make. Accept and earn the ire of this chantry, but secure protection for yours.”

“Become _shem_?”

She does not know that she is already a shemlen. Sad. Pitiful.

Something sad in someone so strong and full of potential brought so low. By my hand. Unknowing and unwitting. Irony. A twist so bitter it would make the _father_ laugh. Bloody and hot. Is that justice?

“You’ll live. Is your pride worth tossing away the potential to close the Breach, _da’len_?”

What right do I have to speak of pride?

Her jaw is tight and her throat tense.

“Deny this, deny opportunity.”

I do not have to choose now. I don’t.

She carves a path of her own.

Fire, water, lightning.

The magic releases, a rush of air that is not air and a pop as I am displaced and displace.

Saying nothing is not the same as accepting or denying. There is a third path.

“We have a common enemy, we are not here to argue with you. We came here to talk – to try and fix the hole in the sky.”

Fool. I close my eyes, she lets a good opportunity go. She did not deny it, but she did not embrace it. She should have. Now, if she chooses to change her mind later, it will not be as strong. She should have made a declaration _now_.

I barely refrain from calling her a shem.

“It’s true,” Cassandra says, “The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late!”

I hear the sound of armor, stepping away from the make-shift stage I turn. I see the glint of metal, hear the heavy sound of boots marching. I brush my fingers to Cassandra’s arm, and she edges a little towards me in response. Her mouth draws down and her eyes flick from face to face.

Does she know any of them?

“It is already too late.” The Chantry woman says, smug and almost fanatical in the way her eyes flash in the morning light. Glittering and black-blind.

“The templars have returned to the Chantry! They will face this _Inquisition_ , and the people will be safe once more.” She steps back as the templars ascend to the stage, looking at them with a fierce and flaming pride -

Cassandra’s hand extends in front of me, and I hope that wherever Varric is that he has a good line of sight. My hands tingle with mana, waiting. My mouth tastes like storms.

And then -

A shem _punches the woman in the back of the head_.

Fascinating. These shemlen and their wars. Her eyes widen in surprise as she looks from the woman to the man who struck her, eyes flying over faces. This is certainly unexpected. The trappings of drama never fail to amuse, even if they are tedious.

It is clear that she will not be getting the Chantry’s support today.

I draw closer to the stage once more as the templars on the stage speak to each other. A man with long hair speaks to a dark skinned man, who looks like he wants to help the Chantry mother.

There is something pleasing in the sound she made when she fell. It is probably cruel of me to think so. But there is something there. Some amusing twist of fate that this woman who has wielded the flaming sword of Andraste against my people gets struck by the same fist she raises in threat. The sword she hides behind cutting through her instead.

I watch as the Chantry sisters crowd around her. I turn back towards Cassandra and her eyes are fixed on the man who came to the stage first. Something like knowing, something like confusion. Something like respect and hurt and waiting.

I raise my eyes from the Chantry women to his, and I expect him to look at Cassandra. He looks at me.

“Is that a message?” I ask, jerking my chin towards the whispering women in white.

“No. It is something that must be done. As if you warranted a message.” He says, sneering at me before turning away to descend the stairs, Cassandra strides towards him -

“Lord Seeker Lucius, it’s imperative that we speak with –”

“You will not address me.” The man cuts through her words – startling. I cannot imagine anyone daring, but here we are.

I am in a world of things I cannot imagine.

“Lord Seeker?”

“Creating a heretical movement, raising up a puppet as Andraste’s prophet. You should be ashamed.” He says, templars crowding to him as he turns to Cassandra. I watch her face.

Broken, bending, breaking in surprise-hurt-shock-anger. Still and fixed.

I can hear the creak of her gloves as she squeezes her hands into fists.

Harellan. Her and me. I think.

The wolf lingers in the corner of my vision. A black figure that traces and creates my steps. Traitor with love. Accident.

I close the thought like a book, like a mouth, like a wing. Gently.

There is no time for that. This is not the place.

“You should _all_ be ashamed! The templars failed _no one_ when they left the Chantry to purge the mages.” He says, turning to address the crowd. Looking past us.

I feel my lip curl up.

Purge. As if magic were a disease.

These shems and their fear, this bias -

 _Magic is a gift_. It is to be treasured. It is the blood of the people, kept sacred and treasured. The embers in flames, passed from mouth to mouth in gentle kiss and whisper over generations. It is a prize, hard fought, well worn, and tenderly guarded.

“ _You_ ,” He points at them, waving his hand in a broad gesture, “Are the ones who have failed. You who’d leash our righteous swords with doubt and fear. If you came to appeal to the Chantry, you are too late. The only destiny here that demands respect is _mine_.”

Self-centered, arrogant, boastful _shem_. What destiny?

No one will have a destiny if the hole in the sky isn’t closed, I want to say. There are too many swords. Too many eyes.

Not enough me. Not enough of the people. Not any of the people.

Just me. Just my teeth and my mana and my crackling anger that makes my skin burn and hiss.

Cullen wanted the templars to help. Cassandra wants the templars to help. They were – part of the order. They are the order.

They knew.

I do not know.

I do not want to work with templars. I do not want to work with templars.

Is it about what I want?

It has never been. It never will be. I am not my wants. My wants are not me. I am a vessel. I am a container. I am sealed shut.

I swallow the bitter and I chase the static out of my teeth by biting on air. I flex my fingers and shake the storm from my bones.

“Templars,” I look past him, through him. The red sword glitters and everything hurts and shines in my eyes. There is no darkness here in this shem maze aside from the phantom in the corner of my eye. “One of your ranks leads the Inquisition. Commander Cullen – you would be welcome as well.”

Not by _me_.

I am not the Inquisition.

I say the words. I mean them.

They are not me.

The Seeker sneers, “A disgraced failure from Kirkwall? You have nothing.”

“But Lord Seeker – “ The man who watched the women with sadness and doubt in his eyes steps forward, “What if – “

“You are called to a higher purpose.” The man who struck at the Chantry mother strides past, rebuking as he walks, “Do not question.”

“I will make the Templar order a power that stands alone against the Void,” Such _ambition_ , such _hubris_. “We deserve recognition. Independence.”

“If this is what you do with your independence I think you need a tighter leash.” I mutter, glancing to the side when Cassandra looks at me. The wolf narrows three red eyes at me. Disapproval.

I roll my shoulders, shifting my weight.

The shems think that the mages are the ones who should be leashed but look at the rest of them. At each other’s throats. Savage _brutes_.

We were once better than this. We were once eternal and blessed. Brought low to watch these shem squabble standing on the bones and blood of our ancestors.

“You have shown me nothing, and the Inquisition _less_ than nothing. Templars! Val Royeaux is unworthy of our protection. We _march_.”

I turn to watch them go. Not sorry at all. Cassandra watches them and I wonder if she wishes she were part of them. If she knew any of them. If Cullen knew any of them.

Varric walks towards us, expression dark, “Charming fellow, isn’t he?”

“Has Lord Seeker Lucius gone _mad_?” Cassandra sounds dazed, turning to us, blinking surprise out of her eyes.

“Do you know him very well?”

One is generally not _that_ proud without people noticing. It makes enemies, that kind of blatant disrespect. The kind that get you killed.

“He took over the Seekers of Truth two years ago, after Lord Seeker Lambert’s death. He was always a decent man, never given to ambition and grandstanding. This is very bizarre.”

I feel my eyebrows raise.

The man she describes is not the man who spoke to us just now.

“Fortunately, the templars aren’t our only hope.” Mages, mages, magic, mana. Singing and calling me back. Common thread. Weave and bind and hold together the world. The Fade touches us all.

Comfortable.

Know thy enemy.

“I wouldn’t write them off so quickly. There must be those in the Order who see what he’s become.” Her eyes narrow, determined as she stares in the direction the templars marched.

Mages, I think. _Mages_.

“We should leave quickly.” Cassandra says, fists slowly opening as she closes her eyes and breathes. Rising. “We must tell the others and plan our next move. The way forward is clear.”

She marches.

I turn to Varric. He shakes his head.

As I move – an arrow whistles and I jump back, eyes flying towards the direction it came from -

No one.

The wolf paces around the arrow. “Message. Not a threat.” He says, tilting his head, “Curious.”

“Was that an _arrow_?” Cassandra’s eyes scanning the upper floors of the city.

“Terrible shot.” Varric says holding his hand out as I unwrap the message. His eyebrows raise, “Looks like we’re going to play fetch.”

“What?”

Before I can ask, a man in mage robes approaches - “I have a message, an invitation to Madame de Fer’s chateau.” He says, holding out a thick folded square of paper to me. I stare at it. He continues to hold it, weakly gesturing it at me.

Varric is the one who takes it. The man bows and makes a retreat, glancing at us – me – over his shoulder.

“He did not tell us what the invitation was for. Or where.” I say, frowning at his back.

“It’s on the invitation.” Varric waves the envelope. He flips it over. “Don’t know who this Madame de Fer is. Fancy.”

Cassandra frowns as Varric flips back to the message from the arrow, eyes flicking from me to the arrow to the upper floors.

Dizzying. Everything glitters and everything looks exactly the same as everything else. I want to get out of here.

“Looks like we’re on a treasure hunt. If you want to know who shot the arrow.” Varric says, explaining what we have to find. I close my eyes and press the heel of my palm to my temple.

I just want to get this all over with. I just want to get out of this stupid trap of glittering white that makes my eyes hurt. I just want to get away from here. Away from the staring and whispering shems, the hysterical prayers of the Chantry sisters on the stage, and the smells and the sounds and _everything here_.

“If you do not there may be repercussions. Whoever it was had an opportunity and missed on purpose.” The wolf says, the arrow between his great paws as he watches me with six red eyes.

“Fine.” I hiss through my teeth. “Give me the first clue again.”

It takes us all morning to find the things. I get lost more times than I can count, and my head pounds by the time we have collected all the objects. I hate shemlen cities. Everything looks exactly the same and there’s nothing – it’s a trap. I can’t find the exits and doors lead into shops and the shops lead into more shops and everywhere I turn there are eyes and whispers and I want to snap and scream.

I hate it. I hate _this_.

I am so frustrated –there are too many twisting pathways that serve no purpose. As far as I can tell, very little in these shemlen cities serves any purpose, really.

And these red objects are hidden away. One under a table in an eating area. Another stuck under coil in a far corner of the docks, behind several crates and barrels and fishing nets. And the final one half-underneath a potted plant on the second floor overlooking the bazaar.

I am ready to cry with relief by the time we make our way towards the exit.

Except -

Mana, mage, magic -

Startling. Strong. So clear, aged, organized. Controlled. I turn. Ears like mine, familiar. Unmarked face, but magic and ears and the eyes like stones. Relief. Familiar and solid ground. The knot of tension eases out of my shoulders.

The first elf I have seen in too long. Bare faced, no mask, no vallaslin.

But welcome.

She eyes me wary. I eye her wary. Welcome is still cautious.

Her voice is Orlesian, and she speaks like them, too. Odd and not odd, to hear her speak in such a strange way.

I almost snort when Cassandra accuses her of tricks – after all, what fool sends their leader to a meeting with an enemy?

Why else did they send _me_ to the Conclave instead of an elder?

My lips curve up as she barters and baits.

(I do not like the way she says _my_ people. I am her people. I am a mage too. I am an elf, I am a mage, I am a rebel. I have been running just as long as she has.)

“And what will this help cost?” I tilt my head to the side. It shouldn’t at all, I think. Who looks for payment when there is a knife at their throat? But the heart and desire is a strange thing, and priorities are skewed. I see things one way, everyone else another.

Keeper’s voice in my head, telling me to curb my tongue. Patience in all things. The slow arrow – isn’t that Fen’Harel – a good lesson to be taken anyway – what other lessons from the wolf – do not trust your eyes do not trust the face – he was one of them – he was never one of them – we love him – we fear him – I do not understand – pray you never do.

“Oh, I haven’t promised the Inquisition our help, _yet_. Consider this an invitation to Redcliffe: come meet with the  mages. An alliance could help us _both_ , after all. I hope to see you there. Au revoir, my Lady Herald.”

I barely manage to repress my grimace at the title she gives me. I am no Lady. I am no Herald. It hurts coming from her, somehow. I understand it from my talks with Cassandra – who needs to believe in providence, in chance, in fortune, if nothing else. Who needs a sign to guide her. She sees through her faith, a framework from which she lurches forward. I even understand it from Cullen, who is a templar – a soldier with Andraste’s flaming sword.

I understand it from Mother Giselle. I even understand it from Leliana, who’s faith allows her – demands – the impossible of her at times.

From Fiona, it comes without preparation. Somehow, she does not strike me as devout.

The idea that even the most casual believers of the Chantry call me that stings. It pushes a soft, purple-colored pain into my chest, softly, like slowly pushing your thumb into a rotten fruit. Putrid, sweet smell. Sticky-soft. Yielding slowly. Collapsing gently.

“Come,” Cassandra says as Varric turns to walk out of the city. “Let us return to Haven.”

I watch Cassandra leave, too. I stand there.

The wolf lingers where the Grand Enchanter once stood.

“Troubled?”

My head hurts. My skin feels like its crawling. My jaw hurts from keeping the words in, at bay. Even my eyes hurt from the painful brilliance of the city – squinting and keeping my eyes half-shut to try and ease the irritation.

“Do they not see?” I turn my face to the sky, blue and blank and somehow so bright that it makes my eyes water to stare into it. “Why don’t they _see_?”

She stares into the sky, throat bared, hands curled at her sides. Her face blotched red from sun and anger and weariness.

“No.” I reply. “They do not. They never do.”


	11. Haven: Sera and Vivienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do not comfort. I push, I test, and I question. But I do not comfort.

As soon as night falls, she flies out of her assigned cabin, easily sliding out the window and, soundless, into the snow. Her feet make small, clean imprints, and she makes a wide circle around Haven, avoiding the soldiers’ tents and the various other groups posted outside of Haven’s walls.

He follows, curious. He has not been able to contact her in the Fade since Val Royeaux. She has curled in on herself, drawn herself tight into her dreams where he is reluctant to tread.

He has attempted, of course, to pull her. To coax her, to lightly tug on that thread of shared power.

She does not answer. Perhaps she does not feel, so deep in her dreams.

The wolf follows, intrigued. Will she run? Is this where her will breaks?

Disappointing, perhaps. But is it to be expected? She is, after all, a child. Even if the Dalish do not think her one. She is.

They are all such children, playing at what they do not understand.

What he has denied them the ability to understand, perhaps.

She does not go very far from Haven, rather she crosses around the frozen lake and tucks herself into a snow drift near a logging site the Inquisition had set up. She curls up into the snow, tucking her face into her knees, arms around her legs. Small and almost invisible in the darkness. Another shadow among shadows, lit with the faint green glow of the Fade from the Breach.

“Da’len.”

The wolf circles and rests on the snow, on top of it – not sinking. Her trail is singular. Her path is alone. She is not.

She carries him. He raises her.

My breath rattles in my chest, cold, and I can feel the cooling damp when I exhale against my skin, the cage-tent of my arms and thighs. I dig my fingers into my arms, and I can’t.

I just can’t.

“What troubles you?”

As if you _care_.

It is unfair to think that. It is – rude to think that.

He gave you freedom. Ungrateful. First breath of air, pushing through the world, they couldn’t touch me, they couldn’t touch me. I am free, I can run, run, run. I can _run_.

They _can’t catch me_.

I press my tongue to the back of my teeth.

I launch myself into the words that aren’t because I know that he will know because _how could he not know?_ I throw myself into the storm that makes my skin prickle headfirst because the words are stones in my mouth, crushing my tongue like thunder and it is a poison inside of me that makes me want to scream.

“She looked at me like – “ I choke on the words. It hurts. It hurts because I know what some of the city elves think of the Dalish, and I know what some of the Dalish think of the city elves. It hurts because she looked at me like _Madame de Fer_ looked at me and I can’t take that. I can’t take that. Not from them both. I can’t take the both of them looking at me, talking to me like that. So I ran.

I wonder if that makes me weak.

I am so _alone_.

I suck in breath after breath because I will not cry here. I will not cry. I did not cry for my vallaslin, I did not cry when the shems chased me in the woods, I did not cry when I became bound to the Dread Wolf, and I did not cry when I left _him behind_.

I did not cry when I betrayed ma elgar’vhenan. I did not cry then.

 _I refuse to cry now._ I will not give these _shems_ the satisfaction. I will not give _anyone_ that satisfaction.

Ma elgar’vhenan’s face – his _smile_ , Creator’s his _smile_ as he turns to me. _Brave, ma’elgar’vhenan. I’m so fortunate to be one with you._ His fingers as he tucks some of my hair – growing back now, growing and grown – behind my ear. For him. I did it for _him_.

If I could not – would not - cry for him, I will not cry for _them_.

“Sera?” The wolf clarifies, probing, gentle. His mana brushes against mine, as much as it can. It’s so strong. In me. Around me. I am becoming it and it becomes me. I think that I am going to forget my own mana, what it feels like to just hold myself and _be_ Ellana, First of Lavellan, soon.

I am a vessel and I am complete.

I am being shaped and added to. I do not know what end product that will be.

If I was complete before, what will I become?

“Yes. Her and – the other one. And. _All of them_.”

Her eyes are dark, glinting in the light. A soft glow that catches the light of the Breach and reflects it back. Captures it and holds it in tight hands.

“Tell me.”  He says. A command that feels right because that’s just how the Keeper said it and it’s almost like how ma says it and it’s nothing at all like _he says it, but it’s close enough and it’s what she’s missed_. Because the shems ask how you are and how you’re feeling but they’re _shems_ and it’s not the same, it’s not the same at all and the words are all jumbled and confused -

I spill the words like a child with a river in her eyes, like I am four summers old and peach-skinned with round palms and soft belly, extended. Running, wobbling my way into my da’s arms, the Keeper’s leg, ma’s skirt.

“She said _people_.” I choke out, “I said elves, and she looked at me and she hated me. She looked at my face and she looked away and she was so _disgusted_. And I asked elves and she laughed and looked at me like I was an idiot and said people. Like _shems_ say _people_. Like elves _aren’t_.”

I bite my lip hard because I will not cry, I won’t. I won’t and this won’t make me. No one will.

It takes more than this. It will take more than this.

“She was like a human.” The words sound garbled in my mouth, like pebbles and river stones. Like round glass beads – the kind that I weave into my hair, the kind that we braid and weave into our hair and our clothes in little messages and markers. The familiar little clicking sounds when I move my head in a certain way, and the resonating sound on his head when he turns to face me, because we are _one_ but there _is no clicking sound. Just me._ It’s just me and all these quick-blooded people who want mine. “She looked at me like noble humans do. Disgusted. Like I was lesser. Savage. Animal. A joke. Then she talked to me like I was an idiot, simple, the rest of the time. Laughing. Like I was – some sort of. Some sort of _joke. Like I didn’t know._ ”

Sera – Sera of the Red Jenny’s. Sera looked at her and looked down and away, nose wrinkling, angry aborted gesture of the wrist. Dismissal. Disbelief. Anger and disappointment. She had taken one look at her face and decided.

That’s the worst part. That’s the worst part. She had put me in a box.

She put me in a box. I try to say. She put me in a box that said _Dalish_ with all the other things that people think are _Dalish_ and I’ll never get out of it. Whenever she looks at me, she’ll see that thing labeled _Dalish_ in her little box and she will never see past that box to _me_.

I am more than the box. I am more than that.

“And then – “ I choke, stumble, breathe. Cold air. Feels better. Makes my face numb.

Biting.

Harsh.

Reminds me of _me_ , reminds me of spines made of ironbark and skin like halla-leather. Strong. Enduring.

Never again will we submit.

Yes.

She looks at me and laughs and sneers in her eyes that are like mine, and she covers her ears that are like mine, and she denies that I am people. She says her people, who are people-people, but _my_ people are people-people too.

“And then there was that – that stupid shem _party_.” Everyone in masks of metal and jewels. Everyone covered up or exposed in baffling ways. Mouths covered in fans, men in strange tight trousers, posing with thin little swords like needles.

And that woman who was like Sera – who looked her in the eye and didn’t see her. Just saw a story, a tale, entertainment. That woman who looked at her and just _wanted_. Wanted to be amused. Humoring me after calling me all the way out to see her. A pet. Who didn’t see _me_ , just saw the rumors. Rumors that I don’t even know because Josephine won’t tell.

Won’t tell me because – I don’t know, reason I don’t know because when I came back to Haven that was the first thing I asked her. What do they say about us, what do they say about me.

Would my clan have heard, even though I am cast far? _Does it matter_? Of course it does – _not_.

I am always free and bound to them even though I cut myself off, even though the wolf is in my path and my bones.

Because they have my heart. They have my spirit. They have my _soul_ and I think that is what the Keeper thought would bring me to heel. Bring me back.

They have him. They have _him_.

And I – I was too afraid to make him choose.

It makes me a little sick. Because I doubt him. And I love him. I _am him_ in that same breath. He would not doubt me, if our positions were reversed. He would ask, and I would not refuse, and I would follow him into death, into _harellan_.

I did not ask.

He lives.

He _lives_ and he is safe far from me and the wolf in my mana. Far from _me_.

I am so alone.

I chose it.

I _chose_.

She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and breathes in, rattling and deep, barking out a sharp laugh that jolts her body in the snow.

“He challenged me to a duel. Said I had no honor. What do the _shems_ know of honor?” She snarls, lashes out at the snow, lightning crackles loud and angry from her fingertips. “What do they know of honor, they’ve – they’ve stolen everything from us. Taken it. Hoarded it. Mutated it and devoured it into parts of them. Even the most honorable of the shems – their _templars_ – “ She spits into the snow, “ – even they turn on their own. Strike down their leaders, turning their blades on those unarmed, soft, fluttering _children_.”

She does not know, I think. She does not know. It is true, the shemlen are – there are many of them. And only a small fraction will ever learn to hold a sword or use a bow and arrow. Even in Arlathan, that was not a luxury anyone could afford. Even the most basic of slaves knew how to kill, skin, and gut their supper. And the highest of the high – they knew how to wage wars. With tooth and claw.

The humans are children. Young in history and culture. Many with hands unbroken with work or labor.

But she does not know.

“A duel with a sword. Who does that?” She snarls. “Challenging a mage to a sword fight. It’s because – they treat their mages like cattle. Lock them up far away. _Magic is a gift_. It’s a gift.” She repeats over and over, eyes closing as she draws in tight again, arms curled to her chest. “It’s a _gift_.”

That they took, he reads between her mumbles. A gift taken, culled out of the blood of the elven peoples. Hoarded like precious gold.

A single drop of elven blood rich with mana is worth more than dozens of halla.

It means _survival_.

They cling so hard to their pasts, they are losing their futures.

They are so _proud_.

And he is so bitterly angry for it. They do not see their fall, as _he_ did not see his fall.

“And that woman. That _woman_. I – she looked at me and spoke to me. And the words were different and we were surrounded in all this _gold_ and _glass_ and – and these – “ She looks up at him, eyes wide. “She looked at me like _Sera_ did. They were the _same_. They decided.”

Her hands make a small cup, the light of the mark dimly glowing underneath her skin.

“They put me in here and said, this is where you fit. You are this. You will never be more than this.” She looks at her cupped hands, and look so – so lost. “This is me. This is me. I was more than this, once. I was a _First_. I was – I was a _treasure_ to my people. I was a _friend_. I was – I was a healer. I was a hunter. I was a story teller.”

Her hands curl and she thrusts them at him, “And now I am this. I am your mark. I am this – this small thing called _Herald_ and _heretic_ that they have put in this box labeled _Dalish savage_ and they refuse to see. They _refuse to see_.”

The wolf’s red eyes gleam and then he changes. The silhouette of a man that kneels on the snow – no imprint, no track.

His hands are long-fingered and large, held out in front of me.

I cannot feel him when he gently touches my cupped palms, folding his own hands around my own.

“I see.” The wolf says and I cannot see his face. “I see.”

The words are building in my chest and I bow my head to touch my knees.

“She talked to me all the way back. And in the Chantry. She _wants_ those mages back in those prisons. She wants the leash. She wants them to be prisoners. And Sera – Sera doesn’t think mages are people at all. Wants them far away from her. How can I -  how can I do this, hahren? Please. Please tell me. I don’t know how to do this. How can I – how can I stay here? They don’t see me – and – and they’re. They’re _animals_.”

I breathe in and shiver. Because it’s true.

They want their mages in towers. Locked up and under key. Watched. Tortured. Denied the sky and the ground and the water we were all born under. They brand their mages with _lyrium_. On the _face_. And they call it just.

They teach their mages to hold themselves open and punish them when they are possessed by demons.

They feed _lyrium_ to people. And use those people to kill and hurt other people.

They exalt traitors, murderers. They kill and make the earth run red with blood in the name of their absent Maker.

They make servants and slaves of each other. Raising and lowering by no discernable means. Their own people. Made low.

They let their people die. Starve. They hurt their people.

Their _people. Don’t they love their children?_

We are not in the Fade, and so I do not feel his touch except as a brush of gentle mana, a feather’s touch compared to what I know sleeps far, far away from here. A single green thread that feels like salt and slurries and waves of grass.

It curls around me softly.

The phantom image of his thumbs sweeps across the soft flesh of my thumb, over my bones to my wrists. His mouth is soft. A sad line.

This is the wolf that loosed the slow arrow for our people. This is the god who loved us even when he let us bleed.

She leans close to me, leaning forward, seeking something. Reassurance, affirmation, solidity. Things I cannot give. Things that I have no right to give.

“They are children.” I tell her, because this cannot hurt her. This will not hurt her. “They do not know a time before the Veil. The people do, even when they do not. It is in their magic, da’len. Your magic.”

She drinks my words in, soft mouth parting, eyes wide and glowing like the heart of wisps. Childlike and awed, soft burning delight and insatiable hunger, delicate flames folded into her irises.

“In the time before the Veil, all the elven knew to keep themselves closed. Because the world was so easily molded by our whims and our desires, we knew to keep ourselves closed. To share, to open, was only the most intimate of acts. And to share, to be opened with one of the higher was to be elevated.”

“The breath of divinity.” She breathes, “Halla-mother.”

I dip my chin, pleased. She pieces things together so quickly. So rapid-sharp. Like lightning storms.

“Yes. We opened to her, and allowed her to see us. And so she was risen.”

Her fingers curl, flex, twitch and she leans forward to me, as if I were here. As if I were real. Eager da’len. I have missed this.

Communion. Communication.

“But the shemlen do not remember that time. So they do not know how to close themselves off. They are born open, splayed wide and vulnerable, always. And because they do not know how to be otherwise, they are afraid. And fear – “

“Makes people do very bad things.” She finishes, eyes darting down and away, frown curling onto her face.

“Understand. Have patience. You must, if you are to be among them.”

I had much patience, walking among the _gods_ and the _forgotten ones_ for so long. I was neither. I was both.

I was always myself.

“I don’t _want to be_.” She half-wails half-snarls. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! _It was never supposed to be this way_.”

I know, da’len, I know. I know better than anyone.

His hands circle my wrists, large and not at all transparent, but feeling like nothing at all. Not real. Not here. Just mana on the inside of me, spreading from the anchor like a feather touch, a stray hair.

“But it is. And you must deal with that. You must stand under this trial.” His voice is calm, strong and deep and not at all Dalish but it sounds right. It sounds nothing at all like how I ever imagined the wolf would sound, but it _sounds right_.

“I know.” I gasp because I am drowning and I have never been so _damn alone_ before. “I _know_.”

There was always the Keeper. Always brothers and sisters. Hunters and craftsmen. Elders and other da’len.

There was always ma _elgar’vhenan_.

From the moment I was born I was never alone.

But now I am.

(And I cannot tell anyone. I cannot tell Josephine who tries to reach across large, gaping, invisible spaces of broken, elven babies and burning cities to reach me. I cannot tell Varric who lets my poor half-truths go and fills my head with stories that I want to curl around my shoulders. I cannot tell Cassandra who rises above everyone else and falls with them, too, every morning and every night. I cannot tell anyone. I cannot even tell my god because of how deeply it hurts inside to even think of it.

The price of my _freedom_.

My selfish, selfish pride.)

Her eyes fall closed, hands curled into fists and I am not good at this. This was not my purpose, comfort. It was always Sylaise and Mythal, even Falon’din before _me_.

I do not comfort. I push, I test, and I question. But I do not comfort.

I do not know how to help this girl. I do not know how to help any of them. I can only give them the tools – the pieces – and hope, bitter and angry, that they don’t kill themselves with it.

“In my journeys through the Fade,” I begin, and her face slowly lifts to me, “I have seen many things, da’len.”

Tell me, her face says. Hungry even in her darkest hour.

“I have seen armies rise, and I have seen them fall. I have seen wars on both sides, I have seen dwarves and shemlen cities build themselves and fall. I have seen the ghosts of dances and the ruin of villages, plagues and famines. I have seen weddings and I have seen spirits touching the lives of farmers and nobles alike. I have seen the lives of heroes.”

 _Tell me_ , I want to say, _tell me. Give it to me._

“They do not know what they are doing.” He says, and I know he smiles, a twist of his lips that is barely there, threatening to show. “They grow into their roles. They are not born great. They are not born equipped with the skills they need. They gather them along the way. Have patience, da’len, and allow yourself to gather the skills. The information. You do not fight this alone. If nothing else, I am with you.” The wolf pauses, head cocked to the side, “In spirit – and perhaps, slightly, in form.”

The wolf turns his head away, listening to something. Searching. He stands, beckoning me up.

“Remember, you can run, da’len. You are free. They cannot catch you now that you are on the path of freedom. Running is not inherently cowardly. You can run away, or you can run _towards_.” He says as I slowly rise. My thighs and knees and shins prickle – how long was I sitting – and I lurch after him in the snow. He shifts in the shadows, two feet then four. Two eyes then six. Innumerable. Man to shadow to wolf. “ _Run_.”

I think he smiles and I smile, too, because I remember that joy. That joy that burst in me and rolled and pushed me to my toes and pushed beautiful cool air into my lungs.

I run, leaping through the snow that is cold and white and soft looking but actually wet and a little gritty. The wolf runs with me -

I hear howls. Lonely and longing and I raise my face to the sky – bleached green-ish, stars faded, but glittering silent.

They are the same stars ma elgar’vhenan sees.

I once told Cassandra that home is wherever I am. I toss my head to hear the beads and bones click, fingers curling to cup lightning as I let out the whoop-howl of my clan. I wasn’t lying, per say.

Because I have never been alone before. It was always me and _him_ , wherever I go he was with me, and wherever he went I was with him. Always. Inseparable. Even when I could not see him, he was in my heart. He is in my heart. I carry him with me, always. My soul.

That makes the distance harder. But he is with me in memory.

If I had asked him to come with me, if I had just asked, he would have not taken a second look back. But I remember his sister’s face as she looked at me, knowing, known, and hissed – _you would turn him traitor._

I could not do that to him.

So I cut where I once mended and I run where I once stood.

I whoop-howl to the sky and the wolves howl back, a long chain that picks up where one left off.

The Dalish fear the Dread Wolf, but they do not fear _wolves_. Not the ones who howl, lonely, longing.

We remember the Emerald Knights and their stalwart guardians. We are all missing our others, calling to lonely skies for what once was. We remember. They remember. A call to a home no one can find – erased from the face of the earth, crumbled underneath shemlen empires.

“You are far from home.” The wolf says, a shadow among shadows of the sparse trees. Stark against the snow. “Far from your clan. And you will be for some time – “

 _Forever_ , I think at him and push frozen air into my lungs, _forever and always. Proud and regretful._

I think the Keeper expected me to return, cowed like a child. I think she thought that holding him from me would be enough. That he would be enough to be my leash, my chain, my yoke. I do not think she realized -

I love him too much to let him hold me.

I would gladly turn _harellan_ a thousand times over, experience the pain of a traitor – a shemlen’s – death, for a hundred lifetimes and more if it would set _us both free_.

And I smile.

I smile so wide it hurts my face because I did it.

I did it.

I set us both free even as I crippled us both. He would never forgive me. But it is worth it.

“ – but you are not alone.” He says, and looks into the distance. “They sense my power within you. They sense your sorrow, your distress.”

Whenever I let the cry rip from my frozen lungs and mist into the air they answer back. Real and tangible in ways that I’ve _missed_.

I turn to him and I smile because it hurts. It hurts – raw – inside. It hurts because I am alone with the shemlen who know nothing of me and could never understand. I am alone and surrounded in soldiers, templars, Circle mages, and people who think me Andraste’s chosen – and thus redeemed from my flaws - or savage brute.

I am alone with my ears and my vallaslin. I am alone in the mark of the Dread Wolf’s existence on my very _mana_ and I am alone in holding all of the knowledge. I am alone in this task which I must complete – and if _he were here_ I would still be alone, because I would not wish this burden on ma elgar’vhenan’s shoulders. On his bright, bright heart.

But they cannot take this from me.

“The wolf hunts in my shadow.” I am hunted, hunting, hunter. Only I know this chase. It is mine. It is elven. It is me.

“I walk this path with you.” For now. This path is shared. Invisible and present, intangible and undeniable. Braided.

“He guides my hand.” I guard my heart and hold my thoughts close, and my head is filled with oceans. My steps shadowed, my path illuminated where they cannot see.

“ _Da’len_.” I belong. I am claimed. The shelter of stag’s horns and velvet spots.

“ _Hahren_.” Service and redemption. Apprenticeship, an illusion of safety and security. The empty promise of patronage.

It is enough in this cold and quick-blooded desolation.

So I tip my head back so far my neck hurts, skin of my throat stretching as I howl and whoop and sing-shriek pierce the sky.

Sera of the Red Jenny’s thinks I am not a person, but a savage thing. Vivienne of the Circle of Magi thinks that I am a puppet, empty and lost and useless aside from the mark on my hand.

They do not know this. They will never know this.

I am whole. I am a vessel. I am sealed closed and I am bigger than they can imagine. _I have done things they could never dream._

They put me into boxes, dark little boxes with lids and no windows or doors.

And they will never see me coming.

I am the slow arrow that has been launched into the sky. And I will pierce their heavens and their boxes and I will _make them see_. I will make them see.

I howl and run over the snow, energy in my veins – the green glow double, in the sky and in my palm. The wolf runs silent next to me, but I can feel his amusement. Palpable.

The gods are real and at least one of them cares for one of the people. Cares enough to speak. The gods are real, _my gods_ are real, and at least one of them walks with me.

For now I am – for now I am _alright_. For now I am – for now I feel better. The waves of grief will come again, I know. They will come and try to drag me asunder, they will ease into the crevices of me and fill until I am washed with them. The ache that is the scar of ma elgar’vhenan will pound and bleed and leak and I will always look for him.

Always.

I will always expect his answer when I click my beads and I will always think of what pleases him and I will always half-wait for him to come and startle me as a joke or chide me when I lose my temper. But he is not here and he never will be again.

For now I am strong and holding. Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after, perhaps a week from now – or even a month – someone will say something. Perhaps Sera will call me not-people, perhaps Vivienne will look at me and say _my dear_ as she looks down her nose at me and smiles that _smile_ of hers. Perhaps someone will make an off-hand remark about knife-ears and savages. Perhaps it will just be waking up to a _roof_ and walls made of flat wood and the mattress stuffed with hay. Maybe it will even be the bread I eat to break the morning fast, or maybe it will even be the way Commander Cullen will look at me with kindness and patience in his eyes and says _herald_.

I do not know when or why – but there will come a time when the waves take me again.

But that is not now.

Now I have risen and broken through them. Cresting.

I have broken outside of the box which I must return to come morning.

My breath is normal again, not painful, but life-giving in my chest. I run and pretend that I do not have to go back. I run and tonight I pretend and I howl and I kick up snow and I stalk through trees and creep low to the ground, listening for hares and foxes and owls.

Tonight her eyes flash with fire folded into her irises and a jagged grin to her mouth. Tonight she threatens to shatter apart, but in the process expands. Grows. Builds upon herself and pounces in the night. She runs like a wild child, teeth bared as she howls, loud and powerful, hair tossed back like a streak as she runs – on two legs and sometimes falling onto all four as she scrambles up snow drifts and uneven terrain.

She reminds him of Andruil, at times. The unrestrained pleasure she takes in her freedom.

But she is gentle and worries and is so very afraid. Dirthamen.

He was a quiet spirit.

I spend a moment to think on the twins, on June, on Sylaise. The quiet ones. The ones it hurt most to fell.

It is sleep. It is – it is rest. It is release. They would not be pleased with the world as it is, now. They would understand.

I tell myself this as I watch her and my mana spools in her palm and the Fade whispers from the sky. I tell myself this as she falls, slowly, into the snow and breathe-laughs-cries.

The wolf sits in the edge of my vision and watches and I open my arms wide like I can hold the sky.

It hurts but it always hurts. It will always hurt. They teach us that from the day we are born.

You will starve, you will get sick. Shemlen will hurt you, animals in the forest will hurt you. You will hurt them back just as hard because you have to. To survive. For the clan. For the people.

Bleed for them.

Swallow the ashes.

I close my eyes and breathe out a gust of air that fills my ears.

“Hahren.” I whisper. “I am so afraid.”

“I know.”

“And I am so angry.”

“I know.”

“Hahren, it’s going to kill me.” I stare into the sky and the stars that are so familiar and not. “It’s going to kill me.”

“We all die, da’len. Even gods.”

“My people.” I whisper, lips cold and my eyes dry. “My people are dying. Our people are dying.”

“Your people are not my people.” He replies. There is something hard in his voice, a reminder, a rebuke. I turn my head in the snow to look at him. The cool glass and bone and wood of the beads in my hair calming against my cheek.

“When did we stop becoming people?” I whisper. “Hahren, when did we stop?”

His eyes are warm and red and tired when he looks at me.

“No, da’len.” He says. “No.”

I don’t know why he says _no_. I don’t care, either.

It always hurts.

I close my eyes and breathe, limbs splayed in the snow.

I ride the waves till morning breaks me.

Lips cold, body almost numb – electricity on my skin, in my veins, keeping me going – I slip around Haven and back through the window into the little wooden cell that they say is my house-home-quarters.

That morning I sit right across from Sera and smile at her with my teeth and rip bread apart with my fingertips. I _dare_ her. Because this is me.

Put me in your box. Close the lid. Lock it tight. Do it.

 _Make me bleed_.

They will never know what I have done.

(I am selfish. I am strong. I am alive. _And I will never forget_.)

I have broken stronger chains than this.

I will not cry _for you_.


	12. The Storm Coast: The Iron Bull's Chargers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the alive that comes from standing and staring into the face of something that will probably kill you without you ever really noticing.

The Storm Coast more than lives up to its name, and I find myself squinting against lightning that sings in the air. My own mana reaches out for it, trying to catch stray threads, hands meeting in darkness, fingers curling together in playful flicks of muscle and thought – and it takes effort for me to hold myself together, tight and closed. The storm lingers in the air, heavy on my skin and tongue, damp and moist and living.

There were, of course, storms in the Free Marches. But they weren’t alive like this. The storm here is alive. It sings and it plays and it fights itself mid-air.

Every breath feels like I’ve caught a piece of it, swallowed it into my chest and belly. I feel _alive_ here – alive in the way I’ve come to recognize as the sort of alive you feel in the middle of battle. The kind of alive you feel – lying down on your belly, hand over your mouth, someone else’s hand on your back, counting moments as you both try to slow down your heartbeats, waiting for the heavy tread of your hunter, your predator to pass you. The alive you feel as you run, legs and lungs and throat burning with wind-whipped desperation and the dry hunger in your lungs for more and more air as you fly and cut through the air like a living arrow.

It’s the alive that comes from standing and staring into the face of something that will probably kill you without you ever really noticing.

The wolf’s lessons roll over in my head, those last few days in Haven as I contemplated Sera and Vivienne – and the invitation from The Iron Bull to the Storm Coast.

His lieutenant – and human titles are strange on my tongue – had been waiting outside the Chantry’s doors. I almost ran straight into him as I fled the war room -

That is the only way I ever leave the Chantry, to be honest. Running as fast as I can towards the square of light that is the snow outside. The shems are nice – nicer than when I first woke here. They are not as hostile. It’s because I hold their fate in my hands, I think. But it still isn’t comfortable.

I nearly ran straight into him, stopping so hard that my heels hurt a little as I dug them into frozen, rocky soil – arms flying out as my eyes widen. He catches my arms, holds me still and steadies me. Doesn’t say a word until I’ve pulled myself together, and lets me go to step back and fold his arms behind his back.

He was polite. Kind. Wanted to give a message to the Inquisition.

His voice sounded odd – an accent I can’t place, a slow drag to his words that just coaxes something out of the throat. Nothing at all like Cassandra’s sharp and rolling Nevarran, or Leliana’s lilting Orlesian. Completely different from Cullen’s low and almost gentle drawl. -, and there was a touch to his face that I didn’t quite understand. Like looking into a warped glass. All the pieces fit, but there was just something _different_ that pulled at the back of my mind. A soft whisper. Quietly, a loose thread that your fingers can’t help but pull and tug at, catching and winding it through your fingers as you follow its trail - until it unravels from its puzzling mystery. A thread that slipped through my fingers the harder I tried to find it.

An invitation from the Bull’s Chargers – Josephine even says she’s heard of them, a good company.

I don’t know what _Qunari_ are, though. I’ve never seen one, only heard of these gray giants in single sentence ghosts that flicker through shem lips through leaves and into our disbelieving ears. We’ve read about them – in Varric’s books. Heard of them through his tales, the tales of Kirkwall and the rumors that came out of it when the Sabrae clan left.

But the Qunari are vague and nebulous collections of words that form a gray mass in the back of my mind. I do not know what to expect and regret not asking more from the lieutenant when I had the chance.

Instead I ask Varric as we make our way towards the camp the Inquisition had sent ahead of us.

“What are they like? Are they truly giants as they say? How much of your book was embellishment, are they truly as you wrote?”

Cassandra snorts, an amused sound that is softer every time I hear it. I look from her back as she forges the way ahead to Varric.

“One question at a time, Blossom – “ That is the name Varric has taken to calling me. _Blossom_. He calls Cassandra _Seeker_. Half mocking and half angry, some sort of hidden joke behind his voice that I don’t really understand, returned in the way Cassandra spits his name back at him, hard click attached to the end of it.

He calls Cullen _Curly_ – for his hair, Varric tells me one night as I puzzle it over, and I remember a templar in his books, sullen and dark eyed who doesn’t sound at all like the warm amber eyes I have come to be wary of. Josephine is _Ruffles –_ which I didn’t need to be explained, and privately made me laugh. I do not yet know what he calls Vivienne or Leliana, but I do know that Sera is _Buttercup_ , though she has nothing in common with the golden flowers used for fevers.

Perhaps in that she is very much like a weed and is toxic to living things.

I am _Blossom_ , and I know that he calls Merrill _Daisy_ and I ask him -

“Are you collecting a bouquet?” He laughs for a long time after that and answers me -

“No. But I couldn’t pin you down. You don’t seem like any flower I know. I guess you can say that nothing else seems to fit.” He looks at me, curious and it feels like he’s sounding out all my cracks and facets. An appraiser of gems and stone. “You’re a complex one.”

I pepper him with questions that Varric answers as best as he can, and it isn’t enough because the gray image in my mind refuses to resolve into something with any features.

We will have to wait and see.

When no one is looking, I try to seek out the wolf and ask him – perhaps he would know, but he is quiet on the subject, a slow raise of his shoulders as he stalks the shadows cast by the lightning that flashes overhead.

I have to content myself with the things I do know – which is, pitiful at best.

The things I do know, and am comfortable and certain of are this -

I am bonded to the Dread Wolf.

No one must know this.

I am surrounded in shemlen who need me for a purpose that has a definite expiration date. After which my safety cannot be guaranteed, no matter how useful I try to make myself appear.

There is something that, I, too, am hiding. And I will do my best to make sure it stays hidden.

Before we set out for the Storm Coast, a delivery had come from a Dalish clan who had heard of – well. Everything. Though I do not think they heard that I was _Lavellan_ – First of.

They just knew that I was Dalish.

They sent me a Red Hart. Or – perhaps it is more accurate to say, they sent a Red Hart to me. I watched as the Inquisition soldiers brought the Hart to the stables and he watched me.

Those soldiers would not have been able to even go near him if he wasn’t _looking_. Harts are not horses. They look at you and _judge_. And they _punish_.

Josephine had asked me how to best reply to them, to which I said _don’t_. I do not think Josephine understood, exactly. I don’t think anyone understood.

That night, as I ate snow to hide my breath and stalked foxes in the snow, the wolf asked me -

“Do they know you?”

“No.” I had answered, pushing another handful of cold snow into my mouth. They knew _of_ me, most likely. Uncertain about the rumors surrounding my name and my clan. Perhaps they heard of the Dalish first, and knowing the shem rumors, they would have not been kind in painting how I appeared. Perhaps someone saw me, perhaps someone was able to describe – in partial truth – my vallaslin. Or maybe someone Dalish saw me and spread word. Maybe Mihris was able to find a clan afterall.

It is unthinkable that they did not know _of_ me. But what, exactly, they knew and held highest, I do not know.

The Hart is a their test. The Red Hart is notorious for being especially picky of their riders, difficult to bond to, selecting their partner with uttermost care and discarding those they find unworthy with a violently efficient toss of their horns.

Either the Hart deems me as worthy, and thus – in the eyes of all Dalish who would see me on him – still one of the people, or the Hart throws me hard enough to turn me into a cripple or kills me, and they would know the truth.

The wolf hummed, a low and contemplating sound. I shrugged – as if I could shrug him and his curiosity off - as I carefully aligned my arrow -

“Politics.” I explained as I plucked the dead fox up by the tail, carefully taking the arrow out of its eye.

The wolf laughed, then, – it is a strangely _light_ laugh. It is not the kind of laugh I had grown to expect from him. He has dark laughs, low and cut off, heavy laughs. Laughs that make my chest constrict and stomach knot. Laughs that make my skin feel like it is shrinking. He has laughs that make me bite my cheek and cringe because they are laughs that hurt and hide. He has laughs that make me feel small and every inch the weak and lesser creature that I am to him. His laughs, I had learned until then, were cruel and angry things. This laugh was different. It was light. It was bright. It was a flutter. A wisps’ touch. A halla’s kiss. Glass chimes and silver bells.

 _-_ and does not ask anything more.

Lucky for me, I was found worthy, and now the hart’s warm breath puffs moist against the back of my neck as I stare into the lightning-chased sky.

He is a silent strength at my side with his liquid black eyes and the soft sounds of his breathing. A silent companion, perhaps the only true one I have. The wolf is a hahren, not a companion – a threat and a guide, a promise and a leash. A blotch and a reminder. The rest of them are people who need me to survive, people who hold swords to my neck. They are not companions, no matter how nicely they treat me.

At the end of the day, _I know where their allegiances lie_.

At the end of it all, I know where _mine_ fall.

I touch my face to the side of his, and breathe in his warm and heavy smell.

A dragon cries overhead, and I watch it fly – lightning and thunder trailing after it and following at the edge of every wing flap and high echoing cry. I have never seen a dragon before, and as I watch it and practically _feel_ its heavy down strokes in the bones of my ears, I hope I never do again.

It is beautiful and it is deadly. They say that dragons are the creatures sacred to Mythal. Just as the wolves are Fen’Harels, and bears are Dirthamen’s.

Vengeance, power, justice, _love_. All curled and wrapped up neatly in deadly flesh and bone. A mother’s love turned into a cutting, fire breathing edge.

“The Chargers are down the slope, Herald.” One of the scouts says as I sink my fingers into the Hart’s thick pelt. I have not thought of a name for him, and he has declined to give me any hint, so far. I think that he is testing me out just as much as I am testing him. I have passed and proven myself worthy of him, but that is not nearly enough so far.

It is a dance that may take weeks, months, perhaps years – if I even survive that long.

The Hart’s great muscles shift underneath my palm and his great head swings – the crown of his antlers an intimidating shock of bone and lightning twists that sways with him.

I turn to Varric and Cassandra – Varric shrugs and Cassandra just nods. I seek out the wolf’s eyes in the flashing landscape and I can’t find them. I feel his mana – I always feel it – and that has to be enough.

“Alright.” I say, “Let us meet these Chargers.”

I gently and loosely loop the Hart’s reigns around a post – if worse comes to worse, I would not condemn him to staying with me if he could just run and escape. His liquid black eye flutters at me as I kiss his cheek.

“They’re down the slope, along the beach. You arrived in time, think the fighting’s gonna start. Said Tevinters would be here half mark before noon.” A scout says as she updates their map with things they’ve found of interest, including the possible locations for the bandits who killed the Inquisition scouts who came ahead of the main group.

So many people dying for this cause. Because someone stole from the wolf.

I feel bad for them. Those shems that died, unknowing and believing. At the same time – I almost wish I didn’t have to care. I wish that I wasn’t so closely tied to it all. I wish that I wasn’t expected to care. But they die for the wolf, because of the wolf – they die so that I can live a little bit longer, even as this mark slowly drains me. Piece by piece.

Sometimes, at night, when it’s just me and the mark, and the wolf waits to teach me in the Fade, I wonder what will be left of me when this is all done. If I’ll be remembered at all, like these shems who die for the Inquisition are. I wonder if I’ll be remembered. I wonder who will remember me, if they’ll remember me well, if they will burn my body or perhaps I will have no body at all. Maybe the wolf’s magic will eat me inside out, and all that will be left of me is a name in the folds of ma elgar’vhenan’s mind. Perhaps I will disappear like Shartan, or be swallowed up otherwise. Turned into a shemlen in books.

Making our way down the steep slope is hard work. I’ve long abandoned the boots the shemlen gave me to use – they got soaked through and gave me no grip on the ground. I couldn’t walk well in them, let alone ride. The rain and moss covered rocks slip underneath my toes.

I hold my arms up, one hand curled around Varric’s forearm, the other carefully hovering over Cassandra’s shoulder as we edge our way down the steep slope to semi-flat, but slick land.

Somehow, over the impossible loudness of the roaring ocean waves that break on the hard rock shore and the cracking and booming of thunder overhead, we hear them long before we see them.

“Well.” Varric says as he unholsters Bianca, “That’s impressive.”

I can only nod because there’s a shem swinging around a _boulder_ attached to what could possibly be a _tree branch_ and a giant looming man with _horns_ sticking out of his head swinging around an equally impressive maul. I stare and Cassandra draws her sword.

“They are out numbered.” Cassandra says, and she’s been itching for a fight for ages, I know. I can tell whenever I see her at the training dummies. No one else in Haven uses them, they’re all for her.

She’s too good to be sparring with the untrained recruits, and everyone good enough to practice with her is busy training someone who isn’t. The Breach and the Divine’s murder don’t sit well on her shoulder’s either. She is a woman of action, and waiting idle is not in her temper. With the Breach hovering overhead, her blood screams for her to act, to solve, to _seek_. Bread that is constantly rising, needing to be cut and eaten before it eats. At night, before we sleep she confides in me the anxiety that builds in her. The need to know. The discomfort she feels between Leliana and Josephine, now Vivienne, who are patient. Who work their way through things in slow circles, snaring and tangling when she only knows how to strike and strike hard and harder still.

I tentatively curl my fingers around her wrist – unmarked and untainted skin against her own – and tell her I understand. I understand because I, too, want to act.

When the Dalish know something is wrong, we run, we fight, we investigate. We do not sit and make polite inquiry. That is what gets you killed.

That’s what gets shemlen at your doorstep, burning your halla and shackling your kin.

Varric sighs and I can’t help but smile a little as I give her a gentle nudge forward. She tilts her head and her mouth at me, shield raising and charging the archer who – foolishly – has his back towards us.

I cast my barrier over her, just managing to snag a few of who I suppose must be the Chargers in it as well. They startle, glancing towards me, but don’t get caught up in it. They return to their fight, but the man with horns pauses for a moment. From this far away, it is hard to see, but I think he is looking at me. At Varric.

“Let him.” The wolf says, and somehow the shadow of him is even darker in the flashing and crashing of the coast than it normally is. “This is as much for him as it is for you.”

We are both on trial, then. Let him watch.

I grow stronger every day. Every night. The wolf so rarely lets me dream. When I am not awake, I am in the Fade. And in the Fade I am practicing with lightning and fire and ice. I am building and being built. Over and over. Every night.

My spells grow stronger and steadier. The Keeper, if she could see me now, would not be so embarrassed, I think.

It is easy, in the Storm Coast, to call down lightning. It barely takes any mana at all, the air is charged, waiting, excited. All it needs is that last element, that one last part.

She needs almost no effort at all to cast, in part to how well she has grown to know the nature of her element, and in part of how amiable the atmosphere around her is towards her magic. I watch, the shemlen, the girl, the man they call a _Qunari_. They fight well, impressive. I watch how they work together, trying to find the pattern – one eye on her, checking her progress, how well she adapts the lessons of the Fade to the waking world, how she utilizes them in context, things to correct, things to question, things to build upon and improve -

They fight fluidly. Professionally. Reminds me of my clan, when all the hunters moved together. A wave and a fluidly moving muscle. Together.

It is over soon enough, the scout was right, we really did make it towards the tail end of the fight. Enough for me to see that they are worth their reputation, at least.

As we approach the giant – this close, I can see that his skin is gray, just like Varric said. And it glistens with water, gleaming with it. Shiny, like metal. And scarred. Like wood.

“Chargers! Stand down. Krem, how’d we do?” I am amazed to see that the shem who was swinging around a rock – a _damned rock on a stick_ – like it was nothing is the same shem who came to deliver orders to the Chantry.

“Five or six wounded, Chief. No dead.” Krem reports, and my eyes flick from him to the giant.

“That’s what I like to hear. Let the throat cutters finish up, then break out the casks.”

He bellows the orders over the roar of the waves, and when he turns to me he smiles. I look up into him. His face is scarred, too. And he is _massive_. A gravity all of his own. But he does not lumber like a large creature does. Not like bears or wolverines do. Not even like the ox these Qunari are called by the shems. There’s a sort of sway, a controlled sway to him. Stag and halla, moose. Wyvern.

I run my tongue over the back of my teeth as his eye takes me in.

I wonder how the Qunari see the Dalish. Elves. If he sees us – me – as savages, too.

Or maybe he sees a woman trapped by the shemlen. Maybe he sees someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Maybe he sees someone who’s hiding something. Maybe he sees me. The wolf. Us.

Becoming death.

Stranger things have happened.

“So you’re the Inquisition, huh?” He says, turning, “Glad you could make it. Come on, have a seat. Drinks are coming.”

I vaguely remember him saying something about casks, and I had thought that was a joke. Some sort of mercenary thing – drinking out on the middle of a battlefield with still cooling corpses. The throat cutters still working around us. Spraying and releasing red salt into the blue-green salt.

I blink, the mark’s mana flutters in my palm, a heavy almost moistness – like fog or steam – that I can curl my fingers into. A ghost of contact. I run my thumb over the seam of the mark.

“The Iron Bull,” I taste the words in my mouth, slowly slipping them past my lips like gold pieces, “I presume?”

“Yeah the horns usually give it away.” I follow as he moves to sit on bleached driftwood. Sitting I only have to tilt my head down the barest amount to look him in the eye.

He is missing parts of his fingers on his left hand. The wounds look old and clean. Purposeful. Or perhaps – swift.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the wolf prowling, I can feel him moving to sit directly behind me.

A trial for him, for me, for us. Qunari, God, Elf. You, me, him, us, we, together, apart, I, becoming.

It is a test.

“I assume you remember Kremecius Aclassi, my lieutenant.”

I glance at him and he nods at me, professional, polite. Not even the slightest touch of the hesitance or the strain I’m used to seeing on shemlen soldiers.

“Nice to see you again.” He says, and I can find no lie in him.

Even the shemlen the Inquisition is training have a hard time looking me in the face and saying good morning. Even the ones who think I’m touched by their Maker, by their burning woman.

It makes me suspicious, immediately.

Either this Krem is a very, _very_ good liar – and I am to expect _something_ to happen sometime soon, probably when I turn my back, or he actually _doesn’t care_.

In my experience, it is usually the former rather than the latter.

I wouldn’t hold my breath hoping for it to be any different, now.

“Throat cutters are done, Chief.” He says, turning back to the Iron Bull.

“Already? Have them check again, I don’t want any of those Tevinter bastards getting away. No offense, Krem.” My eyes flick from the Bull to the lieutenant – _Tevinter, slavers, magisters, leeches and poachers, vultures and scavengers, rot and taint_   - who just shrugs, wry twist to his lips as he turns to deliver the orders -

“None taken. ‘Least a bastard knows who his mother was. Puts’m one up on you Qunari, right?”

My eyes snap back to the Bull’s face, waiting. In my experience, mercenaries – armies – don’t allow for that sort of back talk. Even with the clan, where we were _family_ and _lethallin_ first, that kind of tongue around strangers, in this kind of situation -

Judgment, proof of worth, first impressions, danger, lack of trust on both sides.

\- could get you whipped. I remember a few of the hunters in my age group getting the switch more than once for saying those kind of things back at the hahren, growing up. Sometimes an open hand to the face.

The Bull just turns to me and keeps talking, a flicker in his eyes that says _yes, that happened_ , and I tuck my incredulity into the back of my cheek. This is something. It says something. It says _a lot_.

“So, you’ve seen us fight. We’re expensive but we’re worth it. And I’m sure the Inquisition can afford us.”

I tilt my head, and wonder why he wishes to speak to me. Why not Cassandra – who surely would know more about this sort of thing than I, or even Cullen, who commands the armies. He could have just as easily contacted Josephine, or perhaps even the Quartermaster.

I press my lips together, the damp and electric taste of the salty air makes my skin stick.

“And how much,” I say because this is all I’ve been hearing since I’ve joined this Inquisition. Money, cost, price, favors, exchanges. No one ever wants to help because it’s the smart thing. They all want something. Vivienne wants to try and control the hand that would shape Thedas. Sera wants things solved as soon as possible so she can get money flowing in her direction. Cassandra wants justice. Varric, with Varric there is guilt that I cannot quite pin down. It isn’t entirely the red lyrium. It’s something else. Even the mages want _something_. And now, these mercenaries. These Chargers. “will that cost me, exactly?”

“Wouldn’t cost you anything personally – “ I bite back the snort of derision his words almost pull out of me. Everything costs me personally. Someday, somewhere down the line, this decision is going to take something out of me. All decisions do. Anyone is a fool to think otherwise. “Unless you want to buy drinks later.”

I don’t have money of my own. I think he’s trying to be funny.

“Your ambassador – what’s her name, Josephine – we go through her, we get payments set up. Gold’ll take care of itself. Don’t worry about that, all that matters is that we’re worth it.”

There really is no choice to make. The Commander himself has said that the Inquisition lacks man power. And as much as I am resistant to this unknown – this unknown cost, the weight of this choice – beggars can’t be choosers. And seeing him here, up close, and his group, I would rather have them on my side, for now and for gold, than have to fight against him in the future.

I want my risks where I can see them.

“The Chargers seem like an excellent company.” I answer, and the wolf hums, a low sound that taps its fingers over the back of my skull and rests over the crown of my head.

“They are.” Bull says, and his great bulk rises over me. Looming, not a threat, I think, a display. I will know when he means to be a threat. “But you’re not just getting the boys. You’re getting _me_. You need a frontline body guard. I’m your man. Whatever it is. Demons? Dragons? The bigger the better.”

He walks, and something in the way he moves coaxes me to follow. He is a leader.

And I am used to being led.

Wolves and hahren. Shemlens with swords and dwarves with crossbows. Now Qunari giants.

“And there’s one other thing.” Isn’t there always? “Might be useful. Might piss you off. Ever hear of the Ben’Hassrath?”

“No. I’ve never heard of it.” I’ve never even heard of Qunari outside of books. I thought Varric was making them up until rumors from Sabrae filtered through to the rest of the Marshes.

“It’s a Qunari order. They handle information, loyalties, security. All of it. Spies, basically.”

Oh. I blink. _Dirth’mi_. The secret blades. I know those. I know them well. So they aren’t just Dalish, then, I think. It’s something they have all over.

Somehow, the thought that he has the secret blades, too, makes me more comfortable. And I relax. Just the tiniest bit. A small grain of me, loosening and settling, softer.

“Or. Well. _We’re_ spies. The Ben’Hassrath are concerned about the Breach. Magic like that can cause trouble anywhere. I’ve been ordered to join the Inquisition. Get close to the people in charge. And send reports on what’s happening. But I also get reports from Ben’Hassrath agents all over Orlais. You sign me on, I’ll share them with your people.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to reply _they aren’t my people_ , but I hold it back. Like it or not, I am bound to them, as I am bound to the wolf. For now. I mentally shrug.

I see no harm in him sending reports. And he’d be bringing information my – our – way, as well.

I am comfortable with the workings of one of the _dirth’mi_. It can’t be so different for the Qunari. Collecting and distributing information for the good of the people. It’s just different people. Elf and Qunari. I can understand that. I can respect it.

After all, isn’t that what I was doing when I went to the conclave?

Still -

“You’re a spy and you just _told me_.” For all I know, he has something even _worse_ hidden from me, now. What, with _my_ terrible luck -

“Whatever happened at the Conclave is bad. Someone needs to get that Breach closed. So whatever I am, I’m on _your_ side.”

Which doesn’t answer my question at all.

“You still could have hidden what you are.” I press. It wouldn’t have even been _hard_. If he truly is a spy – and if that is anything close to the _dirth’mi_ , he’d have been able to string me along. String all of us along.

“From something something called _the Inquisition?”_ He laughs, “I’d’ve been tipped sooner or later. Besides. Better you hear it up front, right from me.”

I frown, tilting my head as I take him in. He’s honest. And he’s using it. Using honesty as a tool. A _blunt_ tool.

Ma elgar’vhenan has used that tactic many times to get his way. I practically grew up watching that particular trick get him – and me – out of all and every sort of scramble.

“Alright, you’re in.”  I offer my smile – _that won’t work on me, Qunari._ His lip curls up, a grin that is gone in the next moment – _understood, elf_ – as he turns and calls out to his lieutenant.

“Excellent. Krem, tell the men to finish drinking on the road. The Chargers just got hired.”

“What about the _casks_ , chief? We just opened them up. With a _xes.”_ I snort.

“Find some way to seal’m. You’re Tevinter, right? Try blood magic. We’ll meet you back at Haven.”

I catch her expression and she moves before I can stop her -

She moves forward, fingertips brushing his back and calling his attention back to her.

If he thinks for one second I’m stupid enough for that to happen, he’s got another thing coming. He may have just been hired by the Inquisition, but he hasn’t proven himself to me just yet. I’m not sending an entire mercenary group to the wooden village doors filled with civilians and fanatics.

 _I want you where I can see you_.

“It’s a long trip.” She says, tilting her chin up at him. “We have a camp just up that cliff. Let your company finish drinking there and then move with some of our injured back to Haven.” She flashes her teeth at him, “And I could use that front line body guard right now.”

Even if this is a trap – and it _probably_ isn’t, but I haven’t survived this long trusting _anyone_ that quickly – I feel better knowing that the Iron Bull would be _here_ , away from Haven – and maybe giving the Commander a chance against any potential threat, what with the company missing its leader – than where Cassandra and I are not.

I said yes, so they are _my_ responsibility.

No matter, exactly, _who’s_ gold lines their pockets.

Besides.

I have people to hunt, camps to set up, and soldiers to avenge.

I really could use that front line body guard.

 _Put that money where your mouth is_ , tilting up my chin and cocking my head to the side as I step back and away. _Let’s see how good of a fighter you really are._ The Bull gives me another one of those quick, jagged grins.

“Well. You heard the lady, Krem.” Bull says, amiable as he turns to face me, tilting his head for me to lead on, upturn to his lip as I step back over wet rocks, eyes searching out Cassandra and Varric, “Try not to get lost on the way. Don’t do anything I won’t do and shit.”

“You mean don’t do anything reasonable, chief? Wouldn’t dream of it. Chargers! Pack it up! And quit complaining, it’s only up a _hill_.”

“After you, then.” Bull says, a small hunch of his back that feels almost like a bow. “ _Boss_.”

I flash my teeth at him. Lightning in the air, in my mouth. I jerk my head down the coast. There are rifts here, I know. There are rifts _everywhere_.

It’s time for my own display.


	13. The Storm Coast: Rifts on the Coast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We never pass for anything. We are everything. We are nothing. We belong to no one, to no where. We are an ocean without a shore.

The thing about the rifts is that there’s a heartbeat to them. A rhythm. I’ve found it. All of them are the same, and I can feel them. Little heartbeats, slow when inactive, rapidly spiking like excitement and joy when they burst and spill forward. Like coming home.

I close my eyes against the lightning and the roaring of the shore and I imagine it.

Going home as I am now. Being away for so long. I imagine my feet on damp grass, good soil. My fingers running against sturdy bark and the rustle of hunters in the trees running ahead of me to meet the Keepers and guardians of the camp to tell them that I have returned. I see so many faces in blurs, I imagine them in pieces. There is only one face that comes into focus, complete and clear on his own.

But I cannot imagine the expression. I just see the face, caught in that moment where it could be anger, joy, sorrow, hate, hurt, excitement, longing – any and every emotion. That point of movement and contact.

I shiver and it isn’t the cold that makes my spine feel tight.

Bull and Varric have developed an easy banter, though Varric sometimes looks at Bull the way he looks at _me_. Like he’s thinking. Putting our faces next to some other image in his head. Comparing. He is nothing like what Varric told me Qunari are like, and I wonder if that’s an act. I wonder if Varric is looking for the edges – for the Qunari of Kirkwall – underneath The Iron Bull, too.

He and Cassandra exchange few words, evaluating each other. Waiting for a fight to really see what the other is worth.

Warriors.

Sometimes, sometimes you can only know someone through the ring of steel and the twang of a bowstring. Sometimes you can only really _see_ a person in blood and teeth and heartbeats. That’s when people become real. Because that’s also when people are threatened with being _unreal_. _Un-alive. Un-made_.

Only the shem warriors know that, though. That’s what makes them warriors, maybe. Knowing.

I can taste the wolf’s mana in the air.

Sea salt, waves on the tongue, crashing against the back of my throat in sea foam that scatters. A touch of lightning. Cold. Like sucking in a deep breath of dry air after taking some mint. Like gulping ice water. It slides down the skin, the insides, it makes the skin awake. It makes and it awakens. Sensitive. To him, to it.

It’s hard not to be.

It is the mana of a _god_.

There is a rhythm in the air, I wonder if the others can feel it. Varric is a dwarf, and Cassandra isn’t a mage – but it feels as if -

As if this should be something anyone can feel. Regardless of whether or not they’re capable of manipulating mana.

(Sometimes, I stare into the Breach and wonder – how could you not feel that? How could _anyone_ not feel that calling? That whisper and promise?

It calls _home_.

I do not know what home is – I do not know home aside from a face, a name, a heartbeat, a soul. But that feels like it. More like it than anything else in this world.

It scares me.)

The rift calls for me. I think the rifts are connected, somehow. I have yet to ask the wolf, or tell anyone else – but they feel connected. They know, they’re – they’re pooling knowledge. Their limited awareness.

They know me. They know the mark. They know that I am and am not their home.

The Bull likes fighting. He moves easily, quickly, _gracefully_ for someone of his size and proportions. He lifts his weapon like it is nothing, though I’m sure that it weighs as much as I do, if not more. I watch as the shoulders move, shifting underneath gray skin tinged purple in the light.

He laughs, a loud and light sound.

My eyes flick from him to the rift, the wolf a not-presence that urges me forward.

It is easy to forget that demons and rifts are not something everyone knows, brushes, touches. It is easy to forget that, because I have been doing this for weeks, now. The rhythm of it has sunk into my blood and bones. It is not that I am no longer afraid.

It is that the fear has become part of the breath and exhale, the rhythm, the wave.

It’s part of the sea salt on the tongue, and the sea salt in the blood.

(It is a different sort of salt and iron from living as a Dalish woman, a Dalish mage. It is a type of fear that you can overcome, that you can learn to taste. It is a sort of salt that you can learn to accept.

The blood and iron of being a Dalish woman, a Dalish mage becomes a sort of pride. You learn to flavor everything with that kind of salt. You learn to expect and crave that. In everything you put to your mouth, it must be there. Always. Otherwise things start to lose flavor, taste. They are not as they should be.

You stop tasting that iron. You just stop. You become it. It becomes you.

You wear your fear, the taste of the salt that is both water and blood and effluvia in your hair and your clothes. You grind it into your pores and smear it over the surfaces of your skin. It becomes you. It’s your only choice. It is the choice.)

I do not trust this _Qunari_. Wherever he comes from, whoever he works for, they come from a place far from my dreaming. Far from me, from my knowledge. I have seen touches of gray creatures in the Fade, distorted by time and fear, the sour and rancid slime of it making each memory imprinted upon the Veil strange and distorted. I do not trust this giant man.

There is a lie in his eyes.

I know enough or rebels and traitors to see one tucked away inside of him, in the soft and gently padded crevices of his eye.

I am glad that, for once, _da’len_ and I appear to be on the same page on this. She does not trust him to even leave her sight. I believe that she does not trust me that much, either. But she has no choice in that.

I was never there to be seen.

The rift is on a small peninsula, visible from the coast where we met the Chargers. Barely, through the sea foam and mist.

But I could feel it. A little wrinkle that wanted to be smoothed down, a distortion that whispers and sings to the salt, across the sea.

The pain is bearable, maybe there’s enough of the wolf inside me that it’s easier to accept. Or perhaps I am used to the pain, growing slowly numb. It doesn’t matter which, not really. It means that I don’t fall immediately to my knees, panting and clammy and sweat-damp when it’s done.

I stand, a slight shaking of needles and pins in my arm as the Bull returns his weapon to his back. I breath in deep wet and electricity filled and turn to Cassandra and Varric.

Cassandra nods at me, a smear of demonic ichor across her cheek. I tap my finger to my own face and she gives me a lop-sided twist of her mouth as she wipes it off her face. Varric hums, rubbing his sleeve on Bianca’s side.

“Is Bianca alright?”

“Oh, she’s fine. It’s just me who has trouble keeping up with _her_ , nowadays.” Varric says, winking at me.

Everything is wet with sea breeze. Sweat on top of salt. Everything glistens in the waves and lightning. Like we are all coated in a fine sheen of mist and lacquer.

I wipe the palm of my hand on my thigh. Not that it will do much.

My clothes are equally as wet as the rest of me.

You cannot see the sun through the storm and sea. Time becomes a steady crash and beat of blue-green blood on rocky shores, littered with flotsam.

“We should go back to camp.” Cassandra says, subtly taking my arm, a firm grip, as we walk back towards shore. Both of us slide a little on the sand and stone, our boots soaked through. My hair sticks to my face and sharp strings of pain tug at my skin and muscles. It makes everything feel tight and pulled across bone.

I nod, the both of us leaning against each other as we make our way over the wet and rocky terrain.

The Bull leads, more used to the terrain than either of us, and Varric is behind, covering our backs. Just in case. The hills are steep and curving, the would-be roads and pathways wind. We would be easy targets for an ambush.

I try and wave the sharp pins out of my arm, grinding my back teeth whenever I move my elbow too much. Whenever I hold my arm straight – and I do whenever I pull my staff – the pain gets terrible. A spasming thing that bursts white and wordless from the palm of my hand up my elbow. It fades from the elbow up, pain but not as bad, but it hurts most, there.

Cassandra catches my eye, and flicks her gaze to the Bull’s back and back to me, lips turning up in question.

I shrug.

He did alright in the fight with the demons. He at least knows what he’s doing. It’s more than I can say for some of the shemlen of the Inquisition that I’ve seen fighting. But it’s not much. We already knew that.

There would have been no point in speaking to him in the first place, if he and his Chargers turned out to be terrible, I don’t think Cassandra would have even let me go down the beach.

I mouth to her _later,_ and she nods, turning to face forward as we trudge up the hill back to the Inquisition’s camp, and the Chargers.

Normally, when we set up camp, Varric takes first watch. He tells stories with the other soldiers and scouts.

Cassandra and I talk in our tent, learning each other. I help her take her armor off, one piece at a time, to reveal the back of bread underneath. She tells me of human history, of her faith. She tells me pieces of the Chant, and with more hesitation – what they mean to her. I listen to that which has grown from the blood of my people.

Once, she asks me -

“There are so many in your pantheon, could you not find room in your heart for one more?”

My first instinct was to snap, to yell, to curl my lip and hurt.

Over weeks of the breaking of bread, and the cutting of her skin, my own tongue has been softened.

Instead I told her, rolling onto my side to see her face – the firelight slowly and dully pushing through the thick canvas of our tent to suggest the curve of her mouth -

“Your Andraste is supposed to love everything the light of your Maker shines upon. Is there not room in her heart for Mythal or Sylaise, as well?”

She had turned her face into the shadow and laughed. It sounded painful.

The breaking of bread.

Sometimes she tells me of Nevarra. The silent cities of the Mortalitasi, and the gilded halls and glittering glass windows. She tells me of the Seekers of Truth, her training and her vigil.

Sometimes I even tell her things back – what the beads in my hair mean, as I roll a bead between us, loosened from my hair but not fully unbound. I tell her stories of quail eggs, small and boiled salty-savory. I trace, into her palm, the word for love and the word for laughter. I tell her about the flat bread cooked on flat stones and the pink and delicate undersides of flowers collected. Strange and funny mistakes made by young hunters and apprentices who breathed in too much elf-root smoke in close quarters.

Cassandra has second watch.

I have third, last. I’m used to waking up early. And the wolf is a strict mentor. Once I enter the realm of sleep, I am his to teach, to command, until he thinks I am done. He dislikes having to stop, having to disrupt the flow of his lesson.

Sometimes, when I wake up for the morning watch, sometimes he comes with me into the waking world. He draws runes in the darkness that I mimic with a stick or my finger in the dirt. Listening as he tells me forms, combinations, alterations – the morphemes and how to put them together. I write in the dirt over and over, even when he is not there.

I practice quietly, the small things that I can remember. Quietly, lapping waves, I whisper prayers and words, talking to myself in small sentences. Fragmented. I am building a base wider than perhaps any single Dalish has had in centuries. It is still small. Pathetic. Laughable.

The shemlen mock us, they have more of us than we do.

We have stagnant little ponds, attempting to breed life anew and creating instead only inbred and weak spined fish. They have oceans of color and light. It is a bitter tasting ocean.

The Chargers are splitting up watch duty with us, it appears. Varric and a blonde haired man are sitting by the fire, wooden bowls of stew in their cupped palms as Varric leans in to pull him into conversation.

The Red Hart is a shadow near the horses. I run my fingers through his pelt, kissing the flat of his nose. If animals dream and enter the Fade, I hope that he has dreams of a dryer place than here.

Cassandra is doing short stretches when I get inside our tent, pulling her arm across her chest, wincing and rubbing her shoulder where she took an unfortunate hit by a Shade, earlier.

I sit on my sleeping mat, peeling my boots off with a grimace. Cassandra snorts an almost laugh as I wiggle my toes.

“It’s disgusting here.” I say, I don’t think I’ll ever be dry again, at this rate. We aren’t even in the rain anymore. It’s the _air_. It’s the air, the salt water drifting into the air and misting over the land. The ocean is where it shouldn’t be. “Everything is so _wet_.”

“It’s the ocean.” Cassandra replies. “That’s normally what being near the ocean means.”

“I think the oceans we’ve been to are very different.” I mutter, stripping out of my outer layers. There’s almost no point in hanging them to dry. The air is just as damp. I tug at my shirt, grimacing at the smack of it as it sticks to my skin. Useless.

I flex my palm, restless. My skin tight, the ocean inside just as loud and restless as the ocean that beats upon the shore on the land below us. There is no doubt in my mind that the wolf will come tonight to lecture. Not to teach, but to lecture. Caution, probably. Words of advice for dealing with this Qunari and his Chargers. I welcome it.

The wolf of rebels and revolts, the wolf named Betrayer, would surely know more about suspicion and hidden knives than I would.

I know of the secret blades. I am _not_ one of them.

I would not be here if I was. Or if I were here – I would not be so close to the center of it. The secret blades are very good at what they do. You never know if you’re speaking to one. Sometimes even the blades themselves don’t know each other.

They are perhaps, more dangerous than even the Arcane Knights of old.

“He said he was a spy.” I tell her as she moves to stretch her other arm. “For the Ben-Hassrath. The Qunari don’t like the Breach.”

“I doubt that there is _anyone_ who _likes_ the Breach.” She replies, sighing as she closes her eyes and twists her torso. “A spy. And he just _told_ you?”

“He said he would be found out anyway. If our own spymaster was worth shit.”

Cassandra pauses as she moves to stretch her wrist, turning to cock an eyebrow at me. “Don’t include that in your report.”

I smile. Cassandra rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she closes her eyes and continues her stretches.

“So we have a qunari spy in our employ. We are paying him to spy.”

“He said it’d be more of a two way thing. He’d give us information, as well.”

“Comforting.” Cassandra grunts, stretching forward to touch her toes. I move behind her, pressing my palms to her back and easing her into it.

“If I said no, I wonder if this _Ben-Hassrath_ would have done something else.” I tell her. “Something we wouldn’t be able to say _no_ to.”

“Yes. That is a good point.” Cassandra says, slowly straightening up and taking a slow breath before entering the stretch again. “At least we know the face of this threat. If he is one. He is not a terrible fighter. A little loud.”

A lot loud.

“No worse than Varric.”

“Varric would run his mouth in the face of certain death itself.” Cassandra replies, “Varric _has_ run his mouth in the face of certain death. And it was so annoyed it left him alone.”

I snort a laugh.

“Cullen could use them.” Cassandra says after a moment, straightening up. “At the very least, they know how to handle themselves in a fight. We need that. Even if their loyalties aren’t certain, it’s against the Breach and for now that has to be enough. Leliana will look into it further. Your hand – is it alright?”

“Getting better.” I reply. I’m getting better, at least.

“I am glad.” Cassandra replies, turning to face me. “I am glad that it pains you less.”

It doesn’t. The pain is still the same, if not worse. I’m just better at dealing with it. I shrug.

Sleep pulls us both under quickly. The sound of rain hitting the tarp above us is melodic.

As I close my eyes, I see the faint light of the mark underneath my skin, lighting up my fingers. And the wolf’s eyes glow in the darkness, red and waiting.

 _Come_.

I step into the Fade, a gentle thing. Like walking through mist. Closing my eyes and being in one darkness, to enter another.

I do not see the wolf immediately when I enter.

And I know the lesson-lecture for tonight.

Tonight I hunt. And I am hunted.

I breathe in, a not breath because it is not real air, and I spring into myself. The Fade is shaped by you, your thoughts and your hands and your heart.

In the Fade I am dry. The oceans are inside of me, and I spring on bare feet on whispering and silk-like grass. I am in the leathers of my clan, no -

I wear the soft tunic, the shoulders wide over my skin. Dark blue sash drawn tight around my waist, light skirt loose against my bare legs. Free to run. No staff. A bow and quiver, over my shoulder. The bow is mine, the grip familiar and molded to my palm, my fingers.

I run, the hair tossed from my face, flying off my back. Gravity is and is not, in the Fade. The beads click, a moment out of place, and my hair drift-lands a beat after I expect it, light and drifting. As if I am underwater. I run, pulling on the thread that becomes a braid that becomes a chord that becomes a road-path-bridge-tunnel of oceans and jade to the wolf. It is a moving, snaking thing. Because I am both hunter and hunted, and he is both hunter and hunted. The braid moves and twists, curling around and  up and down, in between things. It moves above and below, through and through.

I pull, he pulls. I let go, he lets go. It is expanding and tightening. We are both.

The path opens before me, and I slip through the small spaces. Spaces not meant for wolves. I grab branches and climb-launch myself into trees. I breathe and I pull the Fade over and through me.

I ride the wave.

I cast and leave parts of myself behind. False trails that won’t distract or trick so much as they will slow down. Because sometimes a hunt is nothing but a run. Instinct. Even the things you logically know to be false can pull your attention enough to give your quarry time to escape.

You sink into it. The wave. The pull. The run. The cutting of air.

It is it’s own freedom and it is it’s own burden.

I curl my fingers through the braid of waves and pull. And I feel myself brush against something almost-thing. And then it is my turn. I brake hard on my heels, turning and twisting, climbing higher into the trees even as the shadows twist and rise with me.

The Fade is not just me. It is him. It is dreamers.

“Hahren.” I breathe in between not-breaths, you are only out of breath in the Fade as long as you remember to be. “How do I hide from him?”

“You do not.” The wolf answers, in my ear but when I turn – hair whipping against my face, beads and leather chords stinging red marks – there is nothing but trees and dreams. “You do as you have been doing. To try anything different would reveal too much. You are no liar, da’len. It is not your nature. You hide by not hiding. There is too much pride in you to hide any other way.”

His voice twists around pride in a complicated knot of amusement and annoyance.

“I don’t understand.”

“You hide with the truth. You don’t know anything else.” The wolf replies as I skid down a rocky slope and into the waters. Loud splashing and a tickling feeling of light. “Your lies are poor, da’len. You don’t know how to create falsehood. You draw the truth into all your words. You’re uneasy with the fictional. You can only understand it as that. Fiction. You cannot impress upon others the reality of the fiction. You can only express the possibility. It is not a bad sort of deception. And it has, for the most part, worked well enough. Stay with that.”

I catch a glimpse of a tail, a paw and dart backwards and away. Back towards the trees.

“Let him know that you have something. Everyone hides something. There is no complete truth.” The wolf says, and I feel his breath upon my back. “You are a Dalish mage. Of course you have secrets. You have secrets from me, even.”

“And you have secrets from me.”

“Naturally.” The wolf laughs. “Let him know that you have secrets. It is less suspicious than attempting to make yourself appear clear of any. And watch him. Watch his people. Watch the way he treats them. Speaks to them.”

A hand on the back of my tunic, fingers lightly pulling. I turn and there is no one. I turn again and the wolf’s jaws click where my face would have been if I did not drop down in time. I scramble to try and crawl through his legs, underneath his chest.

The wolf lowers himself, paw sweeping out and catching me, pinning me down as he looms.

“My mana continues to pain you.”

“Yes.” I flex my hand, but there is no pain in the Fade. Because it is all mana, I am mana and he is mana. Separation, in the Fade, is an illusion.

His magic returns to him, becomes him, once more – temporarily – in this place without bounds.

The wolf hums, examines me for a moment before moving back and away, sitting on his haunches.

“You will need to work on your barriers, with this one.” He says, ears flicking back in amusement. “You may end up keeping him alive more than he keeps _you_ safe.”

“You were watching, then.” I didn’t see him. But then again, between the lightning and the crash of waves, it would be easy to overlook a shadow of a wolf.

“Yes.” The wolf replies. “And there is much to catch up on.”

Stepping out of the Fade is more of a startle than stepping into it. It’s an awareness. You can deny the Fade, you can accept it as reality for a time. But you can never deny reality, and name it _the Fade_.

I dress slowly, and my clothes are only slightly less damp than when I took them off last night.

Cassandra nods to me as she enters the tent, removing her boots and lying down on top of her sleeping mat, arms folding as she goes to sleep.

I crawl out of the tent, careful to fasten it closed, to make sure no light can disrupt the sleep within. Though I am sure Cassandra would be alright, regardless. She seems to be that type of sleeper.

I rise and stretch, my arms rising to catch the sun, and I swoop down low to touch the earth. I twist from side to side, and stretch until I hear my joints pop. Feel it, softly.

I make my way over to the Hart.

Josephine wants me to respond to my clan soon. I’m not sure how. They know that I am alive. What more? What do they want?

An apology? Reaffirmation? Acceptance? Repentance?

I don’t know if I would give it to them, even if I knew what it was.

The beads in my hair get no answers.

I hold my palm out to the Hart, and he pushes his velvet lips against my fingertips, warm and damp air brushing against my skin.

“Will you tell me your name, today?” I ask, and he blinks his dark liquid eye at me and raises his hind leg to lightly tamp at the ground.

No.

“Alright.” I reply, stroking along his neck. “Perhaps tomorrow, then.”

He blushes a breath into my palm again and gently turns away and closes his eyes.

I lean against the post he’s tied to and idly draw some elven letters into the damp wood with my fingernail.

It’s early morning, the dawn not evening beginning yet. Almost everyone is still asleep. I see a few scouts moving, answering to Ravens or otherwise staying awake as I am.

The Charger who stayed up with Cassandra for the watch – a dark skinned, bald man – goes towards the Charger’s tents, pausing to nod at someone coming out of another.

It is the Iron Bull.

I watch him as he stands, straight and tall, scanning the camp. His eye lands on me and he smiles, ambling over to me with easy strides.

“So. Is the test over?” Bull says, pausing a few feet away when my Hart raises his head and stamps his feet, tossing his head in Bull’s direction.

I angle my chin up to look him back at him.

“I do not know.” Is the test ever over? “ _Is it_?”

His eye watches my face, and for a moment he is not _the Iron Bull_. He is something steel and daggers, quiet and hidden, twisting and twisted.

He smiles.

I offer him my teeth and flex my hand against my thigh.

“If it is, I think you’d pass.” The Bull says. I snort.

“You don’t know much about the _Dalish_ , do you?”

We never pass for anything. We are everything. We are nothing. We belong to no one, to no where. We are an ocean without a shore.

The Iron Bull shrugs, lips curling up at the corner, crooked and just as much a lie as anything else.

“Never said what you’d pass _for_.”


	14. The Hinterlands: Finding the Warden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it’s because I fear saying no. Maybe it’s because I fear the consequences of refusing the Nightengale,the Left Hand of the Divine who’s death smears my name. Maybe it’s because I fear there being something there and denying the possibility. Maybe it is all of the above.

The Hinterlands is a place that yells for attention. It is a place with so much history, so much present, and the dark lattice promise of futures. It is the heart of Ferelden, Cullen tells me as he adjusts markers for tasks accomplished, tasks underway, and tasks contemplated.

“Redcliffe is important to Ferelden.” He tells me, quiet amber. Like honey and summer sun. My fingernails curl into moons on my palms as I listen. “It may be lost, but it holds. It stands. And part of that is the people. Ferelden is nothing, if not for her people.”

They call the people of Ferelden the _dog lords_.

Cullen wears a lion’s helm and mane. I wonder if that makes him Orlais. But he was stationed in the Free Marches.

I wonder if any of it means anything when he is a burning sword of Andraste, branded over the heart and belly.

“Are you well?” He asks, as I try to memorize the map. I do not read. I know handfuls of lines that come together to mean danger and shems, fire and shackles, hide. The part of the map that is Ferelden, the Hinterlands has many notes pinned to it. The writing is all different.

Some of it, I know to be Josephine. Gently looping, straight, neat, and thin. Some of it is Leliana, looped and knotted, intricate hangmen’s knots. Few are Cullen’s. Straight and pointed, precise strikes and slashes.

“I am hale.” I reply.

Does the mark count as a disease?

The wolf is a foreign body, a foreign presence – a parasite that isn’t, because he is not taking from me, or living within me, I do not host him. The him inside and far away, braided an churned with the me that is tucked hidden-sweet-soft-silent, pulls at the knots and weave that gather in the Veil and rip with confused violence. But that is not me. He takes no parts of me, instead I take parts of him. Because there is no where for those parts to go – home and into the core that sleeps deep-dark, somewhere lost to shemlen and elvhen alike, buried in ages – so they go to me even if I shut the doors of me and my hidden-sweet-soft-private spaces they spill in. Unwelcome and glory.

How do you refuse the sun?

(I am a disease.)

“But are you well?” He asks and I look up at him, pulling my eyes from the notes and iron markers and the dim flickering candle lit map and his eyes are honey and summer sunlight.

Hidden, watch, salt on your skin, cooler in the dark, safe and compact.

“I am hale.” I repeat, and drag my finger over a ragged, white-going edge of the map. “Where did Leliana’s scouts say they found this Warden?”

A dark gloved finger, square and strong, points – sunlight and the arm of flame – onto a note in Leliana’s knots.

“By one of our camps.” He tells me so I do not have to say anything at all. Because he is kind and I don’t know if I can ever trust the arm of flame from the sun’s eyes, the arm that holds the sword that sings towers and exalted. “Near a lake. He’s alone, and no other signs of him can be found elsewhere. There are some messages of abandoned camps at the coast.” He moves his finger back to the ridge of blue-brown and I taste salt on the back of my teeth and oceans over my wind-sung cheeks.

Two weeks of hiking up and down stone and slurry. Mud and grass. Two weeks of jetsam and flotsam, crashing waves and purple tinted sky. Two weeks of fleshing out judgment.

(“It doesn’t matter what I think.” I tell him. Morning watch is ours, now. The quiet mornings where even the storms sleep and rest in the sky becomes ours. He speaks in a voice that is not quite thunder but something like the sizzle of lightning, arms crossed as I trace my eyes over scars that end and bleed and vanish over gray-tinged-purple skin. Glistening.

We trace each other’s lines with our eyes. Glistening. Hidden blades, slivers of steel exposed. Reassurance. Open threats feel better than velvet scabbards.

“I am just as much hired hands as you are.” I tell him, “Though my payment is my life and my relative freedom.”

Ice in the small fragments of _me_. I could step and step and launch and I would not be caught. Everything behind me, frozen in my wake. Still and imprisoned, immobile and caught. I remain free. Opposites. Irony. Rewards.

“Then we aren’t so different, you and me.” He says as I count his fingers - “Eight.” “Nine if you combine these two together into one.” “Nine fingers.” “Good hands.” “Good hands.” – and he gazes into my wolf’s maw. “But I think you don’t see the bigger picture, here.”

“Says the man with one eye.”

“The girl with her wide halla eyes shouldn’t cast stones.” He says, and I look up and he smiles. Kindness in its own sharp toothed way. I like the Iron Bull. I do not trust him. Not really.

You do not trust the _dirth’mi_. You respect them, you are indebted to them. You do not trust them. You _entrust_ to them.

“It doesn’t matter what your Inquisition thinks.” He says, eight-nine fingers disappearing as he folds his arms. Like the slow and graceful threat of a sylvan. “Because ultimately, _you_ are the one who says _yes_. And _you_ are the one I ask _do I?”_

“I do not pay you. You said so yourself.”

The Bull laughs. “You’ll see, in time, I think. You just need to open those eyes a bit wider.”)

I think of the taste of salt and the reckless and chaotic feeling of distance. So far from the frozen white of the Frostbacks, from the little brown and candle-orange people with their reverence and their hope.

(The Blades of Hesserian part like rippling tides, magic of another kind. Quiet as the pendant glistens on my breast. The tingling amulet from the Hinterlands is still tucked underneath my clothes. A warm buzz, damp, against my skin. Tucked into my breast band to keep from moving.

My arms hurt from demons and magic, and water drips into my eyes, hangs heavy on my eyelashes. Water soaked and salt infused, I raise my voice to carry.

This is not for Andraste, this is not for the Chantry. This is not even really for the Inquisition, at this point. This is for me. Because shems died in my name without asking if they could take it and I will not have that sorrow slung about my shoulders, unembroidered and untailored.

I fling ice and lightning. Cassandra is bread breaking. Varric’s words are bolts with poison. And Bull’s arms are a weight of forests slamming down.

For me. I think as I crack his neck under my water and salt soaked boot. As I walk on his red-salt in footprints that turn pink the further I walk, through little streams of rain and trickling leftovers of storms past. For me.

We follow _you_ , the Blades say. And I look at Bull and he doesn’t say a word. Even trees can be silent.

My eyes are open.

I do not want to see.)

“I’ll go to Blackwall first. Maybe he will know about what’s happening on the Coast.” I say. I am collecting experts to tell me what to do, I think, almost smiling. I am collecting my leaders.

“We shall arrange for your departure, whenever you are ready.” Cullen says.

Of all of them, he is the only one who does not call me _Herald_. Of all the members of this Inquisition.

I don’t know why. Maybe because he does not believe – but the summer in his eyes is too kind for that disbelief. I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell me anything unless I ask. Not about him.

Slowly, in drips and grains, I drop small trails of me. Josephine always has a question about the Dalish whenever I stop by her office, to leave behind pieces for study, or to ask a question. She hesitates, usually. A hitch in her breath as she drops her eyes from my face, before looking at me strong again.

She always asks if she may ask, first. Not many people do that. And it’s because she looks at me again, and because she asks, that I sometimes give her answers.

Some of her questions drift too close to the heart for words.

“Thank you.” I say, slipping away from the table – I never give Cullen my back, not if I can help it – pushing away with my heels as I move out the door, closing it and then turning to run out of the Chantry.

He is a good man, Cassandra tells me.

Good men can do terrible things. Andraste was a good woman. Countless Kings and Queens were _good_ men and women. A good King died during the Blight, and a good general betrayed him, and a good man destroyed the Chantry.

He is a good man, I agree. Summer sun in his eyes and honey in his hair and straw and grass green good homes in his hands.

Hide, hidden, in the green shadows that shimmer violet, shrinking. Tucked safe and small. Don’t make a sound. _Don’t breathe_. Grass and mud stick, itchy, to bare legs.

Mouth over hand, hand over mouth.

Hush.

She catches me as I walk-run-escape, mana building to try and call the wolf. I am getting better. I am beginning to understand how he does it. Freeze-not-freeze-slow-gently-enfold time. And if I do it, I know he will come and there are so many questions I have. I could use his advice.

He is the closest thing to _me_ there is here. The closest thing to _trust_. The only thing that doesn’t feel like hands on my skin and teeth in my heart. He is a wave in my lungs and that is a different sort of drowning and I am _drifting_ with that.

She catches me with a sharply raised voice – makes me think of serving girls and pointed ears and downcast eyes and whispers in the dark.

“Lavellan.” Her voice is not a call but it is a prick in the back of my neck that makes me want to shiver out of my skin and snap and hiss like the savage she likes me to be.

“Madame Vivienne.” I reply, slowing my steps and answering her in the low voice that my Keeper taught us all to speak to shems in. Like talking to a rabid and wild animal. A low voice, a calm voice. Even. Lilting and gently swaying like young branches or lapping waves. Don’t provoke. Lull.

Dull them, quietly. Carefully.

She looks me over, the tips of her pale nails tapping against her folded arms as she smiles. It’s not a _real_ smile. But it’s a _nice_ smile. Like metal polish and leather oils. An easing sort of smile.

“I hear that you are going to find one of the Gray Wardens in the Hinterlands.” She says, beckoning me closer. I lean against one of the stone pillars of the Chantry instead, hands behind my back. I run my thumb over the quiet-warm mark on my palm, and I imagine that maybe if I push hard enough, my hand will go through into the heart of the wolf’s jaw. Biting it off at the meat. “I have business in the Hinterlands as well. It would be most convenient if we could go together.”

I _had_ not prior intention of bringing Vivienne – _or Sera_ – with me _anywhere_. I don’t trust either of them. And both of them make me want to run screaming curses over my shoulder. They both make me feel hunted. On trial. Like the trial Cassandra promised me. Except I am already found guilty and they’re writing up the list of my punishments in their heads.

She keeps smiling and I keep pressing my hand to the closed wolf’s jaw and I force my voice low and calm and undisturbed.

“I look forward to departing.” I answer, because I _did_ look forward to leaving and that is not a lie. Madame de Fer just hums at me and waves a hand as if I were some scullery maid who’s going to clear her table or some sort of drudgery like that and I grimace a smile back at her.

“Lovely. Do run along dear, I will catch up. There are some things I must put together, first.” She says, turning her back to me and I roll my eyes before breaking free of stone and incense and stale air.

Leaving the Chantry is always a shock of blindness that hurts my eyes a little, all that snow and light. I close my eyes and squint through my lashes out of reflex before moving in the direction of the stables. With any luck, no one will try to talk to me on the way.

The Chargers have set up their tents outside of Haven’s walls, a series of brown, reddish, and beige canvas that line the forested area opposite the area where the Inquisition’s small forces have sprung up. It makes slipping out at night to practice infinitely harder. It’s one thing to practice in the Fade, it is another thing to actually expend mana and move my limbs in the physical world. To use it with the heft of my staff and watch how things change.

Some of the main tents – the ones the Iron Bull and his closest, such as Krem – use are right next to the door to Haven’s gates. I’ve seen a few of them. The same dark skinned man from the watch at the Storm Coast. A light haired woman of the people who I haven’t managed to catch otherwise. I normally only see her going into the tents. I wonder what clan she came from.

I’ve also seen a dwarf around one of those tents. A few other men.

There’s always someone awake by those tents. I’ve had to resort to sneaking out the opposite side and risk the soldier’s. The mercenaries have consistent patrols, and I’ve almost gotten caught trying to spot their rotations twice. With the soldiers, they’re green and new. With them I have a chance of slipping through. They aren’t used to _me_.

I run past them, stopping to brace my palm on the wooden fence that my hart has been posted. I throw myself over the fence and lightly land on a bale of hay, folding myself on the crisp and light smelling hay.

The hart looks in my direction, slowly coming over and pushing his nose against my palm.

I rest my face against his, slowly stretching a small piece of myself. I touch it, gently brushing against the warm flicker of mana inside of him. A touch of Keeper magic. Dalish magic.

A touch of me, to a touch of you. I slowly shape the parts of me, the parts of me that are not bound in my bones and my skin and hair and teeth and nails. The parts of me that are just mana, that aren’t words or memories or even feelings. Just _me_.

The parts of me that carry when I slowly melt my way out of my skin into hides and pelts and scales. When my four limbs turn into two or eight, when my eyes change from two to eight and four and back, and when my fingers turn to hooves and claws.

That part.

I send it out, a soft trickling thing.

And he sends it back, a rippling thing.

I run my fingers and release the soft and heavy smell of him, smiling as he noses against my cheek.

A word starts to form in my mind, a quiet and gentle world. A low curl of sounds in a voice that tastes like dandelions and summer heat, and the faintest touch of paprika. Hearty. Heavy. Lingering.

 _Sh_.

He gives me.

I repeat with a mouth that is entirely elven.

“ _Sh.”_

He blinks his liquid black eye at me, and lips at my hair. A faintest tug at the braids and twines and beads and glass and feathers in my hair.

He bobs his head, a gentle dip as he moves away from me to turn back to his idle grazing.

“ _Sh_.” I whisper, thinking of all the names that could form from that. _Sh_.

I smile, turning towards the side of the pen closest to the smithy’s to gather my riding gear.

A flicker in the corner of my eye as I pick up the heavy saddle.

I turn and the wolf is looking out towards the Breach.

“Your party sets out.” He says. “And as you venture forth, your party continues to grow and change. _You_ continue to grow and change. I wonder how the acquisition of this Warden will change you.”

“They’re people, not things.” I answer, “I don’t _acquire_ them. And it is not _my_ party.”

He doesn’t answer me. It’s his way of saying his disagrees, without having to say anything at all. For when he thinks I’m just being a silly girl, not worth correcting.

Instead I slowly finish saddling up – names that start with _Sh_. Maybe I can ask Varric? – and wait for the others.

I half-hope that Madame Vivienne will be late, that I will have an excuse to leave without her.

She isn’t.

And I slowly close my teeth around my voice and breathe frost in through my nose. Cassandra can talk to her. They’re at least the same race. I’m sure that she’ll have more she wants to talk about with Cassandra than _me_. Though from the way Cassandra sets her jaw, she doesn’t look too happy about being her possible conversation partner, anymore than I enjoyed the woman’s lightly barbed questions.

As I lead _Sh-?_ towards the path to the Hinterlands, I catch Bull stepping out of his tent. He catches my eye and slowly looks over to the enchanter, and back to me and shakes his head.

My eyes flick from Bull to Vivienne, and I nod.

 _I know_.

Bull turns to talk to one of his people and I pull myself onto _Sh-?’_ s back. It is a short ride down into the Hinterlands. But the Hinterlands is large and the Warden could be leaving as we ride.

Vivienne’s horse is pure white with a long mane and tail, and a very strange looking gait.

(“Show horse.” Dennet grunts as I watch the horse being stabled from where I hold _Sh-?’s_ water bucket, slowly refilling his trough. “Picky thing. Don’t know why she thought to bring it all the way up here.”

“Not a horse for battle?” I reply. Dennet snorts.

“A fast horse. Good for turning. Good for _running_. Now – good for getting you across this kind of terrain and going straight into a thicket of swords? No. For her? She’d want a palfrey. A Paso Fino. I don’t think she’s going to be going into a frontline battle anytime soon. Unless you know of any plans for such?”)

I rub the fine and velvet leather of the _Sh-?’s_ reigns between my thumb and finger before pulling on my gloves. Vivienne urges her horse to come next to him. I watch as the horse nervously rolls his eyes and _Sh-_ snorts. I smile as he flicks his ears and sighs, slowing down for the horse.

“Herald. You are so busy. It seems we haven’t gotten a chance to talk at all.” Vivienne says, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’re always running this way and that. Dashing to and fro. Do you _ever_ stop, my dear?”

“When I’m dead.” I reply, and I hear Varric snort a laugh from somewhere behind me on his pony.

I hear a soft chuckle that almost makes me snap my neck as I resist the urge to turn. A low chuckle, water on stone. The wolf’s outline slides forward, slipping over stone and snow like a bird’s shadow from the sky. Seamless. Not touching. Leaving nothing behind.

I flick my eyes to her and back ahead.

“Is there something you wished to talk about, Madame Vivienne?”

“I was wondering if you’d given any thought to this whole business of the Mage Rebellion.” Vivienne replies. “And what you are going to do with those rebels.”

I breathe through my nose.

“No. I haven’t. Perhaps you ought to ask Cassandra.” I reply, “Or maybe Josephine. It isn’t my business to know. I’m just here to close rifts.”

And solve shemlen mistakes. I curl my hands into fists and slowly uncurl myself from the ocean.

Vivienne _titters_ and I smile and let go of the reigns.

“I’m going on ahead.” I say as _Sh-?_ quickens his pace, leaving Vivienne behind us. “Seeing as I’m not dead, yet. It just doesn’t feel right stopping.”

“Clever. But perhaps a touch unwise.” The wolf says as _Sh-_ eats the land underneath him in quick, relaxed jolts of his hooves.

“Please don’t lecture me on how to talk to shem extremists like her.” I whisper. “Please, don’t. Unless your solution is to run as far away as possible as fast as possible.”

“Do not make an enemy out of her. She is beyond this _Inquisition_. Not like the others.” Hahren says, unmoving and running all the same. “All of those around you, thus far, are bound to you in some way. Or otherwise, inconsequential should you offend and spurn them. She has power. Power that we desperately need to make headway.”

“She calls herself an enchanter when there are no circles to be enchanter _of_.” I snort, glancing over my shoulder at the party behind us. “And she seems to be under the impression that I’m easy pickings. That I’ll talk to her. Trust her. Bow to her.”

“Is that what you think?” The wolf replies.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Hahren says, “But not good enough. There’s more to it, than that. Should you prove – as you are proving to be, now – more than a puppet figure. More than what she assumes – and no doubt, the rest of Thedas assumes – to be a figure with strings being pulled, and someone of actual influence and power – you are, you may deny it all you like, but the very fact that it is you they send to recruit, that it is you who is invited into that room to confer with rather than anyone else proves otherwise – than you are a legitimate threat. If she cannot control you, she will try to make you trust her. She will try to befriend you.”

I snort.

“And should that fail.”  He continues, voice hard as he draws closer, one of his red eyes level with mine, “And if she should fail in that, she will discredit you. She will try to hurt you. To cushion the effects of whatever she finds displeasing. Consider that as you ignore and insult her.”

“Consider how dangerous a viper I’ve let in?”

“Consider that perhaps you _should_ be her friend and that you should _allow_ her the allusion of some control.” Fen’Harel says. And I turn into his shimmering gaze. There is a curl of a smile in his voice. “Shemlen play little games, da’len. And I’ve been watching them play for centuries. You are no longer a pawn in this game. But to those who think that – well. All the better for our purposes. Be the pawn and be the hand.”

It is a web of hands, I think as I call to mind the red-brown and ivory-cream board the harhen always played on. I am the pawn, guided by the wolf. And I am the hand that guides the Inquisition. And the Inquisition is the hand that guides me. And who, I wonder, is the hand that guides the wolf?

By the time we reach the Hinterlands, I am certain that Blackwall must have disappeared. Like the other Wardens.

(There’s desperation in her face. Hidden well. Just enough of the ragged edge to show, to let me know. She isn’t sending me out on some hunch. There’s more to it.

She wants to know for more reasons than just this _coincidence_.

Maybe it’s because I fear saying no. Maybe it’s because I fear the consequences of refusing the Nightengale,the Left Hand of the Divine who’s death smears my name. Maybe it’s because I fear there being something there and denying the possibility. Maybe it is all of the above.

But it is definitely the way her eyes shift and shimmer as she asks me, please, that makes me say _alright_.)

“No. He’s still there. Doesn’t seem to have any intention of moving any time soon, as far as we can tell.” Scout Harding says when we reach the closest Inquisition camp to Blackwall’s last sighting. She frowns, “He’s got people. Survivors from the valley with him. Recruiting, I think. I’m not sure. We haven’t gotten close. Didn’t want to spook him.”

“Thank you.” Cassandra says, “Any other news of the region, Scout Harding?”

“Cultists.” Harding replies, mouth turning downwards, “Towards the south east, holed up in an old fort. Strange news out of there. Supposedly they’ve set up right next to a rift. On _purpose_.”

“Shems.” I mutter under my breath as I finish making sure _Sh-_ is attended to. “Blackwall first. Cultists second.”

One crazy and unknown shem first, we can deal with the hoard of them and a rift _later_.

“Good thinking.” Varric says. “And with any luck the one isn’t worse than the other.”

“With _luck_.” I reply. Varric hums.

“You’re right, with _your_ luck, the Warden’s going to turn out to be just as delusional as cultists.”

Cassandra glares at both of us before jerking her head in the direction of the lake.

Varric and I exchange grins and I watch as the wolf flickers over the rocks and out of sight. Vivienne walks up ahead to join Cassandra, and I stare hard at her high heels. Impractical. But if she _chose_ to wear them then it isn’t my problem.

“He’s alone.” Hahren says, returning to my side. I tap my finger against my thigh. _So?_ “Do these Wardens always travel alone?”

How would I know?

 _I_ was alone.

“He does not have the sigil of his order.” Hahren continues. “It is suspicious.”

I wonder how Hahren even _knows_ what the Gray Warden order sigil is. The Blight came after his time.

A lot of things came after.

The water is blue and gentle as it laps underneath the rickety dock. I see him and three other shems – doing drills like Cullen’s soldiers. Recruiting, indeed.

“Blackwall?” I call out as Cassandra inspects the hut for others. “Warden Blackwall?”

The man turns. A large man, in a quilted black gambeson turns, face dark and shadowed by his beard and hair.

“Who goes there? How do you know that name?” He demands, advancing with quick strides, eyes flicking over me – I wonder if he knows anything at all about the Breach and the conclave and the Inquisition –

“ _Da’len_.” The wolf’s voice is sharp and the man shoves me to the side, raising his shield just as an arrow thunks against it.

“Alright – that’s it. Either help get rid of these idiots or get out.” Blackwall snaps, turning to me and then onto the shems barking orders.

Cassandra grabs my elbow – and I turn to meet her eyes.

I search out Varric and Vivienne, hahren.

He is a man, a simple wooden staff in hand as he turns to face the direction the arrow was fired. He nods. A single, sharp motion before I blink and he is gone again. His voice is clear in my ear.

“Show them both what you are made of. And watch.”

I throw my barrier over the shems – boys. They’re _boys_. Young with their faces marked with spots. Straw and brown hair and awkward hands and feet. He’s training _boys_. Young in that shem way that means they’ve never held a sword or dagger in their lives. Not in defense. – and I watch them startle, so badly.

Cassandra sighs and I hear Vivienne hum and she, too, is casting out a barrier. It’s strange working next to her. I feel her mana, sliding over and through mine. Both of us seizing the air around us. But it’s different. She’s so open. So shem.

I am closed. I am whole. I am sealed shut.

She overflows.

I shrink back from her. To be open is to vulnerable.

Cassandra slams past two of the shems, shield raised as she collides into a man with a bow, snarl floating up over the general sounds of battle.

The man who must be Blackwall allows some to get through his guard to the boys behind him. And they fight. It is uncoordinated. Hours of watching Cullen’s soldiers, and Bull’s mercenaries fight and run drills while trying to spot patrol patterns tells me this.

I may not know much about shemlen battle tactics, but I know this. They’re too _new_. Uncertain. Good for beginners. Not for fighting _bandits_.

Maybe if they had more time and practice -

I lift my hand and trace the constellations of lightning with my heartbeat and strike.

The truth is that they do not have time. They do not have much practice.

What they have is a man in black and gray, a Warden, in front of them, and an overflowing ocean behind them.

And then there’s me.

I call lightning and watch it spill from the clear sky, feel it chasing and burning after me, and I watch blood and smell singed hair and bubbling skin.

They would not be boys forever, anyway.

Between myself and Vivienne, our barriers cover everyone. Overlapping. When mine fade, hers surge, and where hers break mine rise. But hers burn bright. Mine slip, subtle.

There’s a certain flourish to her hands. A flick of her wrist. A needless extension of her pinky.

It’s beautiful.

Useless. But beautiful.

Weeks of fighting templars, former circle mages, and demons, makes this easy. And when it’s over Blackwall turns and scans us. The shems he guided, first, nodding and dismissing them with their newly cut teeth, and then the rest of us. Vivienne, his eyes skip over, seeing without really caring. A mistake, for all that I dislike her. She is powerful. The kind of powerful that makes me want to put her right in front of me where I can see her at all times. The kind of powerful that makes me want to always see her hands. His eyes hiccup over Varric – dwarves aren’t that common outside of cities, afterall – and slide slowly over me, seeing without.

(A line he says sticks to me. _You’ve saved yourselves_. I don’t know why that stands out, why the words churn in my mind as I watch the shems retreat. As I watch him study us. It repeats.)

It doesn’t hurt or burn when he does that. That kind of dismissal is different.

It’s not like Vivienne, who patronizes even as she looks around for my handler, the one with my bill of sale. It’s not like Sera who sighs and thinks _savage idiot whatever_. It’s not like that. It’s a kind of battle dismissal.

He sees me. And he thinks – not a threat. It’s the kind of dismissal we train our entire lives to hold.

You never want to look like a threat to the kind of shems who know to look for one. It takes away the surprise.

His eyes linger over Cassandra longest, resting on the eye on her chest and the way her hand rests on her sword’s hilt.

Then he breathes, and turns to face me and speaks.

“You are no farmer.” I hear Varric muffle a chuckle and I feel my own mouth curve before I flatten it, quick. Not the same face I use when addressing Vivienne or Josephine or Leliana. Not that face. The face the Keeper and hahren teach us to use around the other kind of shem. The kind of face that says _peace_ , not _stupid_. “Why do you  know my name? Who are you?”

And then I know.

That he does not.

And something inside of me eases, soft. Weeks of my name, my force-given title, sprawling before me in every direction. And finally, here, this man. Who does not know. Doesn’t recognize the eye on Cassandra’s chest. Who doesn’t recognize me from the stories Josephine refuses to share, though I catch them with my _knife-ears_ as I watch patrols and slip between wooden buildings.

He’ll know later, I’m sure. And it will change, later. But right now, at this very cresting moment, he does not know anything at all. And I ease, gently.

I keep my palms facing away from him and open my mouth.

“I am an agent of the Inquisition, and we’re attempting to contact the Gray Wardens.” I answer. I am not technically part of the Inquisition as an agent. I was a prisoner, now I’m just – brought along. Something like one of Leliana’s crows, or one of the horses. A merchant or one of the stable hands.  Not a soldier. Not a spy. Certainly not one of Josephine’s diplomats. I’m not a scholar, either. I don’t get paid, I have no title or rank. I simply _am_.

Inquisition and I. Parallels.

Wolf and me. Twisted.

“The Inquisition heard rumors of you.” I continue, “And there are some questions you could help answer. Let’s talk.”

Blackwall looks at me, then he looks at Cassandra. I don’t know what look she gives back to him, because his eyes narrow and he turns back to me and nods.

I open my mouth, and Leliana’s questions flow out. And the wolf’s magic hums in my palm. And a foreigner’s staff weighs on my back. I am pieces.

But deep down inside, I am not. I am me.

(I am not a Herald. I am not a prisoner. I am not a harellan. I am not even _elgar’vhenan_. I am that piece of me that is always me.)

Blackwall turns the words that are not mine, but Josephine-Leliana’s back at me as I prepare to leave. No news for the Nightengale.

The pieces fall into place, the da’len draws them to her. It isn’t charisma. It is _need_. She touches on their duty without touching. They look at her and they look to the sky. And they feel duty. She is touching lives. They curve and spin around her.

She is becoming something greater. Something that perhaps has not been seen in a long time.

And she denies it with every breath. Willingly blind. Foolish, foolish, foolish.

But perhaps it is better that she does not see. Perhaps it is better to stay blind.

Perhaps, many things. Perhaps.

Perhaps.

(I have walked this road in my dreams and in my fall. _Da’len_ , keep your eyes closed. It is all just darkness.)


	15. The Hinterlands: Warden Blackwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think of her and the troubled line of her thin lips, the downward curve of the corner of her mouth. She refuses to see the forested that will be birthed in the wells of her footsteps. She can only see this, and glimpses ahead.

I listen to Vivienne coax Ellandra into joining the Inquisition, standing off to the side next to Cassandra and Blackwall as the two women discuss Circle matters, waiting against the sun-warmed stone as I think on the expression in Anais’ eyes.

I’m not growing used to it. If anything, I feel it’s presence. Stronger and stronger.

I close my eyes and I think of Mhiris. I open my eyes and think of Fen’Harel. I blink and I think of Shartan. I lean against the stone, and I think of _me_.

“She believed.” I whisper, voice low, to Cassandra. “I don’t know why. I don’t understand. She was so ready to believe in the punishment of your Maker. In the failures of your Chantry. And now she believes in _me_.”

“The rifts are – they are awesome sights to behold.” Cassandra says, eyes scanning over the Crossroads. They’re better than the last time we were here.

Children – quick in every way, like mayflies, summer showers that pass over the land like wind and seeds made adrift. Children with pink skin and red knees and elbows. Better, now, than they were when she first came here. I see her, the trail of her, where we go. I can almost imagine her as a scent. A faint trace of her, lingering in places. New grass replacing burnt, gold-brown ash.

They grow out of her. She leaves behind a trail of green. Sprouts out of the dirt.

I think of her and the troubled line of her thin lips, the downward curve of the corner of her mouth. She refuses to see the forested that will be birthed in the wells of her footsteps. She can only see this, and glimpses ahead.

She, too, is a mayfly.

It is regrettable.

She could have been so much more.

The folly of my youth.

I squandered their inheritance.

Children roam, and they look fuller, now. Less gaunt. I place the faces of my kin on them. My face. The face of my fellows. The other _da’len_ as we played wolf-halla-fox. As we practiced our silent signs, and braided each other’s hair.

We are not so different, the shems and us. Not when we are children.

I listen to them laugh and play. Their bare feet splash in shallow puddles, leaving streaks of mud up their thin legs. More fleshed out than when I first came here. Some of the scouts and hunters in the area nod at me. Something not really cold or warm in their eyes.

When you walk among the Dalish, you know you are all kin. Someone’s mother’s mother is someone else’s mother’s something. We all share blood, and we all know it. We trace the lines, careful. Always switching out to prevent too much inbreeding. Especially with our blessed ones. The ones with the ability to manipulate mana. Oh, those. _Those_. Those are plotted and planned. Kept tabs on at all time. Anyone in a clan can tell those family trees up and down and sideways.

Among the Dalish, you are all kin. Because if your clan dies, you have to hope that the other clan, with the remnants of your blood, survives. Survives to carry the People forward into the new age. You hope they survive the shems. You hope they bury you with a seed on your heart and roots threaded through your folded fingers. You are all kin, because all the stories are the same. Because we are all the same story. We are all the story. The living words of a story still being written.

So you are kin.  You are welcome. I – a complete stranger – could walk into any Dalish camp. And they would know me. They would know by the beads and strips of cloth in my hair. Their first would know me at the brush of my mana. I – Ellana of Lavellan – am welcome. My name is clean. Relatively.

(They know, I think, they would have heard by now and they would know. But they would welcome me, rare-one. _Elgar’vhenan_. Lucky. Auspicious.)

They would welcome me, and feed me. Care for me. And love me as one of their own.

Among the shems, I know it is different. There are so many shems. They do not need each other to survive like we do. If one shem dies among the hundreds of hundreds, it makes little difference. If one shem with magic dies, they rejoice. They only want _some_ of their shems to survive.

They have the luxury of choice.

And for a Dalish to walk among shems. It is different, there, too.

Because they look and they are Vivienne. They are Sera. They are Josephine. They look and see a strange thing. Puzzle half-solved. A puzzle made of teeth and savage blood.

Among the shems, they look at you cold and boiling. Ready. Laughing and sneering. Hurting.

This. The Crossroads. It’s different.

The shems don’t look at me like the _Herald_ or _murderer_. They look at me like -

I don’t know. I don’t know because no one has ever looked at me like this before.

It isn’t bad. It isn’t good. It acknowledges something, something a touch warm. It’s not full welcome, and it’s not indifference. It’s -

_I see you. I have met you. I remember you. Thank you._

A nod, a dip of the head. A slight upward turn of the lip.

And then I think of Anais, and the fever in her. Chancellor Roderick and the winter in him.

It makes me think of Cullen. Cullen looks at me warm, a gentle warm. No one else looks at me like that, either. It’s a kind warm. Makes me think of _home_.

The heart.

There is a heart in his eyes and that is uncomfortable. That is _close_. That is _telling_. That speaks too much.

“If they are so easily swayed.” I say, watching the children run through the dirt and grass, “Can they be trusted? They saw a rift and worshipped it as deserved penance. Then they saw me close it and devoted themselves to me. _Me_. I know what your people think of idolatry.”

Cassandra winces. “Be lenient, Lavellan. They don’t know anything. _We_ don’t know anything. They make their own answers to fill the gaps of what they believe.”

“It’s too easy. Faith shouldn’t be won like that.”

“You closed a rip into the Fade. Most of them will never see magic in their lives, and you did that.” Cassandra crosses her legs as she hooks her thumbs into her sword belt. “The more who believe in you, the greater the Inquisition will become. We need the people to sway the forces that be. We need this.”

 _We_ , she says. _I,_ I hear.

I shake my head and turn. Blackwall leans against the stone a yard or so away.

I do not know what to make of him. He seems – nice enough. Pleasant. He and Varric made small talk. They got along well. I do not know if that is a testament to Varric’s amiability or not. I haven’t met anyone Varric hasn’t gotten along with, yet.

Even Cullen, who is – supposedly – a rival-enemy, if I’m placing faces to characters correctly, he has light conversations with, and speaks well of.

I watch him. He’s quiet. I can’t pick pieces out of him.

Suspicious. It is hard to know what, about this man is suspicious. But there is something. Something that pulls at the threads of my mind. There is something secret in him. Something he hides. Something that chases him. There are too many flaws, here. A messenger getting lost? Months without contact from his superiors?

True, his intentions were noble, in staying behind with the conscripts. But his explanations of not _knowing_.

Trust him, I whisper to her, trust him, for now. You cannot afford not to.

You have already let him in.

He is the first to _invite_ himself to this Inquisition.

The Seeker, the _durgen’len_. They were here before, before her. Ellana. They came before.

The Iron Bull – he waited. And lay himself before her, and said _watch_ , and asked _shall I_.

The woman, she opened her doors. And she pretended to ask. But it was Ellana who said yes. A game of manipulation that she could have ended by simply saying _no_. An illusion of an illusion of choice.

The girl, easily discarded. Ellana allowed it. Allowed her in. Even as it rankled her, distressed her. Hurt her. She let that arrow in.

 _Anger_. Fool girl, discards so easily. Blinds herself. Refuses to see. Tucks herself in and scorns that which she does not know. Longs for it, in secret, but hates it, now. She hates that which she cannot have. A child. A child turned bitter, so she strikes against that which has what she wants. Fool girl.

My responsibility, too.

My failures, lined up before me. Mythal, how I have failed.

This one, though. _This one_.

She does not invite him. She does not extend her hand. He says, _wait_. He says, _I go_.

And where is the trick?

What are you _hiding_?

I have your scent, Warden Blackwall. _I watch you_.

The shemlen may not believe in us. But we believe in them.

 _I believe_. I believe because I have seen. The children of my people brought low through my folly and their own. And the shemlen who rose and devoured their still-breathing wounded bodies like vultures. Leeches. Parasites.

I know not which is the greater indignity. The fact that the shemlen have taken the treasures of the people and perverted them so, or that in the hands of these quick-blooded descendents of the people they are as worthless as inanimate stone.

“You’ve done some good work, here.” Blackwall says and I turn to face him fully. “I heard of this – this Inquisition. Didn’t think I’d actually see it.”

“And now you have.” I reply, uncertain. How do you talk to shems who don’t want you dead, don’t want to use you, and don’t need you? “Thoughts?”

“Not what I expected.” Blackwall replies, looking at me.

Ah.

I smile. My Vivienne smile.

“Ears too pointed?”

A recoil that is confusing. Why recoil? He knows. I know.

Too much elf. Too many knives in my blood.

“Too young, is more like.” He says, gruff, averting his eyes. I tilt my head, open my mouth to correct -

I am old enough to -

Swallow ashes. Become Sylaise-Mythal-June-Ghilan’ain.

Old enough to cut my veins and spill the blood of _elgar’vhenan_ to grow. Graft. Generate.

I am old enough to go to the Arlathan a woman.

I am old enough.

But Vivienne interrupts.

“I apologize for keeping you.” She says, “I shall go on ahead and escort Ellandra back to Haven. It is so very important for us mages to stick close together in these troubling times. I would feel much better if she traveled in company.”

The woman is a master of words. I think Andruil would have enjoyed picking her apart and watching her squirm. And I think I would agree, for once.

A clever way of saying that she is not a mage as they are, showing that she can be used. Is not in control. A subtle sort of defiance. Something softer than a slap to the face, but just as potent.

It _rankles_.

Good, I think as I smile my Vivienne smile for her.

 _Good_.

Send her on ahead, and the rest of us will finish up some things here.

“Back already? I just got my feet up and everything.” Varric says as we return, Vivienne and Ellandra already moving off to the side to gather their things and a sizeable amount of resources to make the trek up to Haven.

“You miss us when we aren’t around to bother you.” I reply. “Otherwise you’d run out of material for books.”

“That is true.” Varric muses, “Though I probably would sleep better at night.”

“You’d miss the background noise.” I turn towards the table filled with writing equipment, Cassandra automatically coming to stand next to me, taking up the quill and bending to write, waiting.

I am starting to learn the shapes of words, though I do not trust my hands to make them. I repeat them, silently, inaudible, on the back of my eyelids. With sticks and my fingers in snow. Unsteady and uncertain.

The wolf could teach me. Varric could teach me. Cassandra, Josephine, the Iron Bull – I have a growing list of people who would gladly teach me.

I do not ask.

What would I say, anyway?

“We’ve found the Warden, and there was a situation with a cult.” I say, watching her make magic with ink and paper. Placing events into solid, flat, undeniable forms. No doubt better than I could. Many lines to describe my single sentence. Sometimes I ask her to read it back to me.

This – I think as she writes – this one is Leliana. This collection of letters. There are seven of them. Five are small. Two stand up straight. And that is the word Andraste. Three standing up letters. Eight in total. Her writing is different from Varric’s.

Varric’s looks a little round, oval. Slanted off to the side.

Cassandra’s is sharper. Not as much of a slant.

I shift on my heels as she writes, occasionally asking me for what I want to say. What I want to say, I think, can probably wait for until we get there.

Our messages among the Dalish are short. Quick. Because usually that’s all we can afford. Everything else – everything else can wait.

If it’s truly important, you will try to survive to tell it. Things like _I love you’s_ and _I hurt_ and _I miss you_. Things like _I saw_ and _this reminded me of_ and _I met_.

The other things – the necessary things. Those are the things you try to pass across.

_Shems coming. Templars on the horizon. War. Hunters. Slavers. Disease. Do not go to – . Not safe at – ._

She stands. Still. A point of interest and muted color among the humans. She holds a stillness that they could never hope to have. It is a stillness that is grown, passed on. The stillness of untouched forests, water with no breezes. A waiting stillness. A doe with ears up, waiting. A wolf in the underbrush. An owl, wings raised as it prepares. She is the baited breath.

She stands, her feet bare and solid, rooted to the ground. A curve to the line of her that suggests _wait_ and whispers _dare_. Even her mouth, her nose, the drop and rise of her shoulders is quiet. Undisturbed.

The graceful lines of her vallaslin tell all.

Dirtha’men. Pale brown, like a birthmark. As if she were born with it.

Secrets.

She has many.

Let her keep them. Let her keep them.

“We should set out.” I say, “Maybe we can catch the trail of a few more Wardens if we are quick enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slower updates because May and June are going to be super busy months for me, ir abelas.


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